The Languages of the Twelve Kingdoms

The Tongues, Curses, and Wisdom of the First Empire

STELLAN: The Common Tongue

In the beginning, there was only song.

The ancient texts of every kingdom—scrolls crumbling in Zygos libraries, cave paintings in the mountains of Tragos, coral tablets preserved in the depths of Ikthyan temples—all tell the same story, though they tell it differently. A star fell. Not the gentle drift of a dying light across the night sky, but a violent descent, a scream of silver fire that tore the darkness and shattered upon the earth.

The star broke into twelve pieces.

Each fragment carried a portion of the celestial song. Each found its way to a different people, a different land, a different way of understanding the universe. And each piece taught its people to speak—not with grunts and gestures, but with words, words that resonated with the harmony of the cosmos. Words that could, if spoken correctly, reshape reality itself.

The starsingers call this first language Stellan: the star-tongue.

Pure Stellan exists now only in prophecy. When Celena sings the future, when her voice channels what the stars whisper, she speaks words that belong to no single kingdom. The syllables flow like liquid light, comprehensible to all who hear them, carrying meaning beyond mere vocabulary.

Prophecies sung in corrupted Stellan—twisted by dialect, bent by accent—produce corrupted futures. The starsinger tradition holds that mispronouncing a prophecy doesn't just change its meaning.

It changes what will come to pass.

This is why Celena's father spent twenty years teaching her the pure forms. This is why she practiced each vowel until her throat ached, each consonant until her tongue felt foreign in her own mouth. A starsinger who speaks carelessly doesn't merely fail to communicate.

She rewrites destiny.

Modern Stellan bears only passing resemblance to its celestial ancestor. Each kingdom's dialect has drifted so far from the source that traders require interpreters, diplomats require study, and lovers from different lands learn to speak with their bodies because their words will only betray them.

The centaurs find this amusing.

They claim—and who can argue with beings who lived before the star fell?—that they taught humanity to speak. The star's fragments merely reminded humans of what they'd forgotten. Centaur elders still speak of the "silent centuries" when humans communicated only through violence and fear, before the horse-folk took pity on the hairless, hoofless creatures who kept wandering into their grazing lands.

"We gave you language," the centaur chieftain Gham once told Celena. "You gave us war."

She had no response to that.

The Twelve Dialects

Kriosan: The Tongue of Krios

Words in Kriosan hit like fists.

The dialect evolved from battle-chants, from the rhythmic shouts that coordinated phalanx movements across bloody fields. Verbs come first. Commands dominate. A Kriosan speaker learning Zygosi philosophy struggles not with the concepts but with the grammar—how can anyone think in sentences that don't begin with action?

Kriosan words are short. Brutal. Efficient.

Thrak. Strike.

Dor. Kill.

Veth. Honor.

Krath. Blood.

King Tyrus of Krios, the man who would become Gilga's greatest enemy, reportedly forbids any noble from speaking more than ten words without including a command or an insult. The restriction began as military discipline. It became cultural identity. Kriosan poetry, what little exists, reads like a series of orders issued to the heart.

The traditional greeting between warriors translates as "I won't kill you yet."

This passes for warmth in the highlands.

Sayings:

"Thrak prothos, legein heteros." "Strike first, speak later."

The fundamental Kriosan philosophy compressed into four words. Negotiation is what happens after your enemy is too wounded to fight back.

"Krath prin logos." "Blood before words."

Actions demonstrate truth. Promises mean nothing. Only what a man does with his blade reveals what he is.

"Veth kos krathos." "Honor is strength."

The closest thing to a moral philosophy Krios possesses. A man without honor has no strength; a man without strength has no honor. The circular logic troubles no one.

Curses:

"Krathvos themnai!" "May your blade shatter in battle!"

The ultimate Kriosan humiliation. Not death—any warrior can die with dignity—but failure. The moment when steel betrays flesh, when the weapon a man trusted becomes his doom.

"Phylakos anemos." "Guardian of wind."

To call someone a "guardian of wind" implies they protect nothing, defend nothing, are nothing. Worse than coward, because a coward at least has survival instinct. A guardian of wind has abandoned even that.

Maxim:

"Tharenos kos, tharenos nekros." "He who hesitates, dies."

Carved above every training yard in Krios. Painted on the shields of the Hamal elite guard. Whispered by mothers to children who show fear. The maxim acknowledges no nuance, permits no exception. In battle, in politics, in love, delay is death.

Gilga learned this maxim from her father. She spent her life proving it wrong.

Taurosi: The Tongue of Taurus

Taurosi takes time.

Where Kriosan rushes, Taurosi lingers. Vowels stretch. Consonants roll. A single word might require three breaths to pronounce properly, each syllable placed like a stone in a foundation. The architects of Tauros measured their buildings by syllable-length—a house blessed with a hundred-syllable prayer would stand for a hundred generations. Interrupting a Taurosi speaker mid-word is punishable by exile.

Not mid-sentence.

Mid-word.

The dialect developed among the mason clans, among people who understood that rushing creates cracks, and cracks create collapses. Taurosi contracts are legendary: three days to read aloud, covering every possible interpretation, every conceivable circumstance. A Taurosi merchant won't sign an agreement that lacks provisions for invasion, drought, divine intervention, and the birth of prophesied children.

"What about an attack by giant bats?" a frustrated Kriosan negotiator once demanded.

The Tauros diplomat spent four hours adding an empusai clause.

Sayings:

"Pethrosis menetai." "What's built remains."

The Taurosi expression of faith in permanence. Change is temporary. Stone endures. Whatever lasts long enough will outlast everything that challenged it.

"Lithonos gignoskei." "Stone knows."

Traditional wisdom requires no justification. If the ancestors built a wall in a particular place, that place needed a wall. Questioning the wall questions the ancestors, and questioning the ancestors questions everything that came from them—including the questioner.

"Themelia kratistai." "Foundations hold strongest."

What supports matters more than what shows. A beautiful tower on weak ground will fall; an ugly structure on bedrock will endure. Taurosi parents tell their children to marry for foundation, not for facade.

Curses:

"Thalimorphos themelia." "May your foundations crack."

To wish cracked foundations on a Tauros is to wish destruction on everything they build, everything they love, everything they hope to leave behind. The curse implies not sudden catastrophe but slow inevitability—the crack that grows, the wall that leans, the house that one day, without warning, falls.

"Xorikos aionos." "Rootless through ages."

A wanderer, a man without land or lineage. Taurosi consider rootlessness the saddest possible fate—not because wandering is hard, but because it is empty. What has a rootless man built? What will he leave?

Maxim:

"Marethikos stenai opou anemos ptaisei." "The patient stand where wind fails."

The longest maxim in any dialect, as befits Tauros. Wind howls. Stone remains. The patient man—the builder, the planner, the one who lays foundations—will still be standing when the storm exhausts itself. Strength is temporary. Endurance is eternal.

Lithonax, the diplomat who nearly fought General Krathos, kept this maxim carved on his staff. He lived to be ninety-seven. Krathos died at forty-two, charging a fortification he should have besieged.

Didymi: The Tongue of Didymoi

Every Didymi sentence is a lie.

Not because Didymoi speakers are dishonest—though many are, delightfully so—but because the dialect evolved among merchants who needed to say one thing and mean another. Puns nest inside metaphors nest inside double meanings. A simple "good morning" might be a greeting, an insult, a proposition, or a contract offer, depending on the inflection, the context, the relationship between speakers, and the phase of the moon.

The twin monarchs of Didymoi, by tradition, finish each other's sentences in public.

Rumors suggest they share one mind.

The truth is more practical: they trained from birth to read each other's micro-expressions, to anticipate each other's thoughts, to present a unified front to a world that expects twins to be identical. They are not identical. They simply learned to perform identity so well that even they sometimes forget which thoughts belong to whom.

Didymi words are musical, rapid, slippery as eels. Merchants developed coded trade-speech that only family members could fully parse. A Didymoi trader negotiating with outsiders might seem generous, even foolish—until the contract reveals that every concession included a clause that reversed its meaning under certain conditions.

"Certain conditions" always come to pass.

Sayings:

"Dyo aletheiai, mia glossa." "Two truths in one tongue."

The fundamental Didymi principle. Nothing has only one meaning. Every word carries its opposite. Every promise implies an exception.

"Emporikē synthēkē." "The merchant's bargain."

A deal that benefits both parties—or neither. The phrase is used both as compliment and warning. A merchant's bargain might make you rich; it might ruin you. The only certainty is that the merchant will prosper.

"Diploē óxi éneka kérdous." "Doubled not for profit."

The rarest phrase in Didymi: a declaration of genuine generosity. A merchant who says this and means it offers help without expecting return. The phrase is so seldom used that many young Didymoi don't recognize it.

Curses:

"Kethralios voranthas!" "May you speak only truth!"

The most horrifying fate a Didymi can imagine. Truth, unadorned, unsubtle. No ambiguity to hide behind. No double meanings to provide escape. A truth-speaker in Didymoi would starve within a week. No merchant would trade with someone incapable of negotiation.

"Monoglossikos." "Single-tongued."

An insult implying stupidity, rigidity, and social death. A single-tongued person can't navigate the layered conversations of Didymi society. They take everything literally. They miss the jokes, the offers, the threats that lurk beneath every pleasant exchange.

Maxim:

"Veth nai veth." "What is said is not said."

Plausible deniability elevated to philosophy. A Didymi speaker who offers this maxim after a statement has created a legal and social escape route. "I said that? No, no—veth nai veth. I said something that sounded like that, but clearly meant something else entirely."

Celena found Didymoi maddening. Every conversation felt like a maze with moving walls.

Gilga found it useful. The queen who declared "mercy is strength" needed a language that could mean two things at once.

Karkyan: The Tongue of Karkinos

Karkyan is a whisper.

The coastal people developed their dialect for ship-to-ship communication across moonless water, for secrets shared between decks while enemies listened at the rails. Speaking loudly in Karkyan is considered obscene—not merely rude, but a violation of intimacy so profound that families have feuded for generations over a single shouted word.

Karkyan conversations happen in murmurs, in the spaces between sounds.

A Kriosan warrior visiting Karkinos for the first time invariably commits social suicide within hours. His normal speaking voice registers as a scream. His questions sound like accusations. His laughter might as well be an assault.

"They think we're weak because we're quiet," a Karkyan sailor once explained to Celena. "They don't understand. The sea hears everything. The water carries sound for miles. We learned to keep our voices low because our enemies were always listening."

He said this in a whisper so soft she had to lean in to hear.

That was the point.

Sayings:

"Oikia kratei kardian." "Home holds the heart."

The central Karkyan principle. Family above kingdom. Hearth above conquest. A Karkyan soldier who abandoned his post to protect his family would not be punished—he would be honored. A soldier who abandoned his family to protect his post would be disowned.

"Karkinephyxia." "The crab's defense."

Withdrawal. Retreat. The shell closing around soft flesh. Karkyan warriors are considered cowards by Krios standards—they retreat readily, surrender quickly, and refuse to fight battles they can't win. They consider this wisdom, not cowardice. The crab survives. The crab endures after the creatures that attacked it have been forgotten.

"Kymata kai aima." "Waves and blood."

The two things that bind Karkyan families: the sea they work and the lineage they share. Marriage contracts in Karkinos include blood-oaths—breaking a union doesn't just end a partnership. It dishonors the dead ancestors who witnessed the joining.

Curses:

"Hamarion teskara!" "May your hearth grow cold!"

The death of a family line. Empty chairs at the dinner table. Children who never come. A hearth without fire is a house without life—the Karkyan equivalent of wishing someone's entire lineage into extinction.

"Xenos aionios." "Stranger forever."

To be without family and home, without the whispered intimacy that defines Karkyan existence. A stranger forever walks through the world alone, speaks at volumes no one will match, reaches for connections no one will accept.

Maxim:

"Kimaros kratei, palmirros astrophei." "Family holds when tide turns."

The promise that blood will protect you when everything else fails, when nations fall or trade agreements dissolve. But family—the people who share your blood and your whispered secrets—will shelter you against any storm.

Nyxios heard this maxim once and laughed.

"Family," she said, "left me on a mountain to die."

The Karkyan speaker had no response. In her world, such a thing was literally unthinkable.

Leonic: The Tongue of Leon

Leonic announces itself.

The dialect developed among royalty, among people who believed their words should echo across kingdoms. Leonic speakers project. They declaim. They treat every conversation as a performance for audiences both present and imagined. The first word of every formal Leonic sentence indicates the speaker's status, the listener's status, and the relative importance of what follows.

A servant addressing a noble uses third person: "Does His Radiance wish..."

A noble addressing another noble uses fifth person, a grammatical construction so complex that scholars from other kingdoms study it for years without mastering its subtleties.

"What does fifth person even mean?" Celena once asked.

The Leon ambassador smiled. "It means we're both too important to speak directly to each other. Our words must pass through three intermediary conceptual entities before reaching their destination."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It sounds proper."

Leonic words are booming, formal, laden with honorifics. Speaking casually to a social superior is not merely rude, it's treasonous. Children in Leon learn status markers before they learn to count. A three-year-old who addresses a duke incorrectly brings shame on her entire house.

Sayings:

"Leontikos brychēma." "The lion's roar."

Speaking with authority that cannot be questioned. A lion's roar doesn't request compliance. It announces reality. When the King of Leon speaks, his words become truth. The universe bends to accommodate them.

"Stephanos pro onychos." "Crown before claw."

Dignity before violence. A Leon noble never resorts to physical force while rhetorical force remains available. Violence is crude. Words are civilized. A properly devastating insult accomplishes more than any blade.

"Helios memonōmenos." "Sun alone."

The burden of leadership. The sun illuminates everything; nothing illuminates the sun. Kings have no equals, no confidants who truly understand their position. This phrase is used both as complaint and as boast.

Curses:

"Thremvos malinax!" "May your name be forgotten!"

For a Leon noble, whose entire identity is wrapped in lineage and legacy, being forgotten is death beyond death. The body dies; the name should endure. To wish forgetfulness is to wish a kind of erasure that makes physical destruction seem merciful.

"Skotinos genethlios." "Dark-born."

An accusation of illegitimacy, of uncertain lineage, of ancestors who cannot be traced into the glorious past. A dark-born person might be physically present, but they are socially invisible. Their words carry no weight because their blood carries no honor.

Maxim:

"Korathios stenai monos." "A king needs no equals."

The loneliness of absolute authority. Leon rulers are taught from birth that seeking friendship or seeking connection with lesser beings is weakness. The crown sits on one head. The throne holds one body. The kingdom needs one will.

Gilga heard this maxim and understood, finally, why Leon had no allies.

Parthian: The Tongue of Parthenos

Parthian permits no sloppiness.

The dialect evolved among healers, among people who understood that mispronouncing a medical term could kill a patient. Every word is enunciated with surgical precision. Contractions don't exist. Slang is heresy. A Parthian speaker who drops a syllable in casual conversation has committed an offense that requires formal apology.

Parthian children aren't taught to speak until age five.

Before that, only song.

The reasoning is practical: singing develops breath control, pitch recognition, and the muscle memory needed for precise pronunciation. A Parthian child who begins speaking too early might develop bad habits that prove impossible to correct. Better silence than imperfection.

"Your daughter is six and still doesn't speak?" a horrified Kriosan mother once asked her Parthian counterpart.

"She speaks beautifully," the Parthian replied. "She simply has not yet found anything worth saying."

Sayings:

"Katharotēs en akribeia." "Purity in precision."

The Parthian creed. Exactness prevents error. Error causes harm. Therefore, exactness prevents harm. The logic is unassailable, which is why Parthian philosophers have spent centuries trying to assail it.

"Tomē kathara iatrōsis tachytera." "The clean cut heals fastest."

Brutal honesty. A Parthian healer who discovers terminal illness doesn't soften the news, doesn't offer false hope or speak in comforting metaphors. She states the facts exactly and precisely. The patient will grieve, and the patient will know.

"Logos hapax, logos aei." "Word once, word always."

Parthian promises cannot be retracted. A word spoken becomes a word permanent. This makes Parthians exceptionally careful about commitments—and exceptionally reliable once they've made them.

Curses:

"Malethikos zornimax!" "May your hands tremble!"

For a healer, trembling hands mean death. Scalpels slip. Sutures fail. Medicines dose incorrectly. The curse wishes not just incompetence but the awareness of incompetence. The healer watches her own hands betray her, unable to stop them, unable to save the patient she could have saved if only she were precise.

"Alalos iatros." "Wordless healer."

An insult implying that someone cannot communicate their knowledge, cannot teach or contribute to the great Parthian project of accumulated wisdom. A wordless healer might understand medicine perfectly, but what good is understanding that dies with its holder?

Maxim:

"Shara veth shara moranthis." "What is spoken is spoken forever."

The permanence of words. A Parthian speaker considers each sentence as if it will be carved into stone, read by generations yet unborn, judged by standards yet uninvented. Speak carefully: speak knowing that your words will outlive you.

Celena admired Parthian precision but couldn't live it. Prophecy is messy. The stars don't speak in clean sentences.

Zygosi: The Tongue of Zygos

Zygosi never states. It proposes.

The dialect developed in debate halls, among philosophers who believed that certainty was the enemy of truth. Every Zygosi sentence is structured as a question, an invitation to consideration, a proposal awaiting counterargument. Speaking declaratively in Zygosi marks you as either a foreigner or a fool.

"Is it not the case that the sky appears blue?" a Zygosi philosopher might ask.

"Are we not walking together through the marketplace?" his student might respond.

"Does the evidence not suggest that commerce occurs here?" the philosopher continues.

This conversation might last hours.

Zygosi contracts are masterpieces of balanced ambiguity. Every clause has a counterclause. Every provision has an exception. Every promise has a condition. Signing a Zygosi agreement means accepting all interpretations simultaneously.

"But what does the contract actually say?" frustrated merchants from other kingdoms demand.

Might we consider that 'actually' is itself a term requiring definition?" comes the inevitable response.

Sayings:

"Amphoterai cheires kratousin." "Both hands hold."

The Zygosi commitment to seeing every perspective, weighing every argument, considering every possibility before reaching conclusions that immediately require reconsideration.

"Zygos zugizei dis." "The scale weighs twice."

Consider consequences. Then consider the consequences of those consequences. Then consider what you might have missed. A Zygosi decision-maker who acts on first impression has failed before beginning.

"Isotēs kai isorropia." "Equality and equilibrium."

The twin goals of Zygosi governance. Every citizen equal before the law. Every force balanced by its opposite. A society in perfect equilibrium, theoretically, would need no government at all.

Curses:

"Tharim kethora!" "May you never decide!"

The paralysis of infinite consideration, a person who cannot decide cannot act. A person who cannot act cannot live. The curse wishes someone into philosophical purgatory: forever weighing options, forever unable to choose, forever trapped between possibilities.

"Monoperspektikos." "Single-sighted."

An insult implying closedmindedness, the inability to consider alternatives, the arrogance of certainty. A single-sighted person is not just wrong; they're incapable of recognizing their wrongness.

Maxim:

"Krathlaxis voranthos krathosolix?" "Does justice serve truth, or truth serve justice?"

The question that launches Zygosi careers and ends Zygosi friendships. Philosophers have debated this maxim for centuries without resolution, which is, of course, the point. The maxim's power lies in its unanswerable nature. It reminds speakers that even foundational concepts resist certainty.

Gilga found Zygosi exhausting. "Sometimes," she told Celena, "a decision just needs to be made."

"Does it?" Celena replied, having spent too much time with Zygosi diplomats.

Gilga threw a pillow at her.

Skorpian: The Tongue of Skorpios

Skorpian is what isn't said.

The dialect developed in the desert, where sound carries for miles across canyon walls, where enemies might lurk behind any dune, where speaking carelessly meant death. Skorpian conversations occur in whispers, in implications, in the weighted silences between words. What a Skorpian speaker doesn't say often matters more than what they do.

Skorpian oaths are never spoken aloud.

A Skorpian who swears vengeance doesn't announce it. She thinks it, in the privacy of her own mind, knowing that the gods will hear. The target never knows. The target's family never knows. The target's entire kingdom might remain ignorant until the moment the scorpion strikes.

"How do you know if a Skorpian is your enemy?" a nervous merchant once asked his guide.

The guide smiled. "You don't. That's the point."

Skorpian words are sparse, careful, loaded with meaning that requires context to unpack. A single syllable might convey threat, promise, and memory simultaneously. Outsiders learning Skorpian often believe they've achieved fluency, until a native speaker demonstrates the seventeen meanings they've been missing.

Sayings:

"Skorpikos epaggelia." "The scorpion's promise."

Vengeance, patient and certain. A scorpion doesn't chase prey. It waits. It remembers. And when the moment comes—when the target has forgotten the offense, grown comfortable, assumed safety—the stinger strikes.

"Hypokeimenon kryptomenon." "What sleeps beneath."

Hidden dangers. Buried secrets. The threats that exist below surfaces, waiting for an unwary foot to step wrong. Skorpians consider visible threats merely interesting; it's the invisible ones that deserve respect.

"Mnēmē skorpiou." "Scorpion's memory."

The inability to forget an offense. Skorpians don't forgive because they can't forget. Wrongs accumulate, interest compounding, until the debt becomes unpayable by any means except blood.

Curses:

"Namithikos vorkainax!" "May your secrets be spoken!"

The ultimate Skorpian nightmare. Secrets are armor. Secrets are weapons. Secrets are the foundation of survival in a land where everyone is plotting and everyone is prey. A Skorpian whose secrets are exposed is defenseless, vulnerable, already dead in every way that matters.

"Phanerikos." "Openly-living."

An insult implying transparency, the absence of hidden depths, the foolishness of existing without protection. A phanerikos person walks through the desert naked, trusting the sun not to burn them.

Maxim:

"Shalkorios mnēmonikei." "The wronged forget nothing."

The core Skorpian truth. Time heals nothing. Distance forgives nothing. The wrong done today will be avenged in ten years, in fifty years, in a hundred years. Skorpian children inherit their parents' grudges as surely as they inherit their parents' eyes.

Nyxios understood Skorpian instinctively. "Kill or die," she told Celena. "But the Skorpians add a third option: wait."

Toxan: The Tongue of Toxotes

Toxan doesn't lie.

The dialect developed among centaur-herds, among people who traded with beings physically incapable of deception. Centaurs consider lying not just wrong but incomprehensible. Their language lacks the grammatical structures that would allow it. Humans who dealt with centaurs adopted the same constraints, finding that dishonest traders were simply refused service.

Over generations, the constraint became culture.

Calling someone a liar in Toxan means immediate duel. Not tomorrow. Not after discussion. Immediate. The accusation so profound, the insult so complete, that only blood can resolve it. Toxan speakers therefore choose their words with extreme care: not to deceive but to remain precisely accurate.

"Is it a pleasant day?" a visitor might ask.

"The temperature is moderate and the wind is calm," the Toxan responds. "Whether these conditions constitute 'pleasant' depends on individual preference, and I cannot speak to yours."

Sayings:

"Toxikē alētheia." "Arrow's truth."

Direct and unavoidable. A truth that hits its target without deflection, without softening, without the cushioning that other dialects consider courtesy. Toxan truth might hurt, but at least you know where you stand.

"Toxon kamptei, logos ou." "The bow bends, the word doesn't."

Flexibility exists in objects, not in speech. A bow can curve without breaking; a word spoken cannot be unshaped. The maxim argues for physical adaptation and verbal rigidity—adapt your actions to circumstances while keeping your language honest.

"Kentauros didaskei." "The centaur teaches."

A reminder of their dialect's origin. When uncertain, Toxan speakers ask themselves what a centaur would say. The answer is usually shorter, blunter, and more honest than the human instinct would prefer.

Curses:

"Velkathikos morinthas!" "May you speak only lies!"

The transformation into exactly what Toxan culture despises. A liar in Toxan isn't just dishonest. They're inhuman, bestial, beneath contempt. To curse someone into lying is to curse them out of the community of rational beings.

"Kamptoglossikos." "Bent-tongued."

The insult is specific: not a liar, but someone who bends truth, who speaks accurately but misleadingly, who arranges honest words into dishonest patterns. Bent-tongued people are more dangerous than straightforward liars. At least liars can be caught.

Maxim:

"Tharenos legei, lithos thrauei." "Truth speaks, stone breaks."

The destructive power of honesty. Truth doesn't care about comfort, about feelings, about political convenience. Truth shatters illusions and demolishes carefully constructed lies. Speaking truth in Toxan isn't just honest. It's an act of violence against deception.

Celena found Toxan refreshing and terrifying in equal measure. Prophecy requires interpretation; Toxan doesn't allow it.

Tragosi: The Tongue of Tragos

Every Tragosi word costs breath.

The dialect developed in the mountains, where thin air made wasted words potentially fatal. Tragosi speakers learn young to compress meaning, to say in one syllable what other dialects sprawl across sentences. Eloquence in Tragos isn't measured by beauty—it's measured by efficiency.

Tragosi has seventeen words for "snow."

It has none for "mercy."

This isn't an accident. The cliff-dwellers of Tragos survived by being hard: hard on the mountain, hard on their enemies, hard on themselves. Mercy implied weakness. Weakness invited death. A Tragosi parent who spared a child from necessary labor wasn't kind. They were crippling their child for the future.

"The mountain doesn't forgive," Gilga's grandfather once told her. "Why should we?"

Gilga's response to that question defined her life.

Sayings:

"Oros memnētai." "The mountain remembers."

Grudges held forever, carved into stone like the carved dwellings of Amalthea. A wrong done to a Tragosi's great-grandfather is still a wrong requiring vengeance, still burning in family memory.

"Cheimonikos didaskalia." "Winter's lesson."

Suffering teaches survival. A child who hasn't known cold doesn't understand warmth. A warrior who hasn't known defeat doesn't understand victory. The lesson is learned through pain; the lesson endures.

"Kratos ē kremnos." "Strength or cliff."

Tragosi either stand strong or fall. There is no middle ground, no negotiated position, no compromise. The mountain offers only two options: climb or plummet.

Curses:

"Kragethikos thoremnax!" "May you fall from height!"

The curse is literal: death by falling, the body broken on rocks, the end of a failed climb. But it's also metaphorical—the fall from status, from the hard-won position that every Tragosi fights to maintain.

"Cheimōn-anemos." "Winter-soft."

An insult implying weakness, inability to endure, the softness of lowlanders who've never known true cold. A winter-soft person might survive in gentler climates—but they would die on their first Tragosi night.

Maxim:

"Shankorios kratei ē shankorios nekros." "Discipline holds or discipline dies."

The fundamental Tragosi truth. Discipline isn't a choice—it's survival. A disciplined climber lives; an undisciplined climber falls. There is no third option. There is no mercy.

Gilga learned this maxim from her people. She spent her reign trying to prove that a third option exists.

Droshan: The Tongue of Drochus

Droshan changes daily.

The dialect developed among wine-philosophers, among people who believed that fixed language reflected fixed thinking, and fixed thinking was death. Droshan dictionaries are rewritten annually, not because the old words were wrong, but because they were old. Yesterday's vocabulary belongs to yesterday's ideas.

"What do you call a ship?" a visitor asks.

"Today? Thalamikos," the Droshan responds. "Yesterday we called it kymaloikos. Tomorrow, who knows?"

"How do you communicate?"

"With enthusiasm."

Droshan conversations sound like arguments conducted in poetry by people who've had too much wine. Neologisms fly. Puns collide. Traditional speakers from other kingdoms often leave Droshan negotiations convinced they've agreed to something, without any clear idea what.

This is by design.

Sayings:

"Avrianos logos." "Tomorrow's word."

Innovation is inevitable. Change is constant. Anyone who clings to yesterday's vocabulary is clinging to yesterday's understanding, which means they're already wrong about today.

"Oinos rheei neos." "The wine flows new."

A celebration of constant renewal. Wine that sits too long turns to vinegar. Ideas that sit too long become dogma. Keep everything flowing, keep everything fresh, keep everything new.

"Palaia lexis, nekra idea." "Old word, dead thought."

The Droshan contempt for tradition. A word used by your grandfather cannot possibly express the realities of your life. Language must evolve at least as fast as the world it describes.

Curses:

"Morthavenikos kravinax!" "May you think in straight lines!"

The worst thing a Droshan can imagine: linear thought, predictable reasoning, the inability to leap sideways into unexpected conclusions. A straight-line thinker is already defeated by anyone willing to curve.

"Arkhaios nous." "Ancient mind."

The insult implies calcification, the hardening of mental arteries, the death of creativity. An ancient mind might know many things—but it cannot learn anything new, which makes its knowledge already obsolete.

Maxim:

"Thalenos voranthos, voranthos thalenos." "What was, isn't; what isn't, will be."

The Droshan philosophy of temporal fluidity. Nothing is permanent, including impermanence. Today's impossibility is tomorrow's mundane reality. Today's certainty is tomorrow's abandoned superstition. The only constant is change, and even that might change.

Celena found Droshan exhausting. Prophecy requires fixed reference points; Droshan provides none.

Ikthyan: The Tongue of Ikthyes

Ikthyan drowns in metaphor.

The dialect developed among twin rulers who claimed to share thoughts, who needed language for emotion more than information. Ikthyan speakers don't say "I love you"; they recite poems about two fish swimming in the same current, their scales catching the same light, their dreams mingling in waters too deep for sunlight to reach.

Ikthyan love poems take hours to complete. Weddings last three days, just for the vows.

Outsiders find Ikthyan beautiful and utterly incomprehensible. A simple request for directions might spiral into a meditation on the nature of journeys, the impermanence of destinations, the way the current always finds the sea. By the time the speaker finishes, the visitor has forgotten the question.

"The path you seek," a helpful Ikthyan might explain, "swims leftward past the coral of morning commerce, through the deep channel of the ancestors' dreams, emerging at last where the twin suns once kissed the horizon in the age before ages."

"I just want to find the market."

"Do you? Or do you want to find what the market represents? The exchange of need and desire, the current of commerce that connects all islands in the great sea of civilization—

"Please just point."

Sayings:

"Dyo kolympoun ōs hen." "Two swim as one."

The Ikthyan ideal: perfect partnership, perfect unity, two bodies sharing one current. Marriage in Ikthyes isn't a contract; it's a fusion. The lovers don't become one. They recognize that they were always one, temporarily deceived by the illusion of separate flesh.

"Reuma gignoskei." "The current knows."

Trust the flow. Trust that the waters carry you where you need to go, even when you cannot see the shore. Ikthyans consider planning aggressive—an attempt to impose personal will on cosmic design.

"Oneiro hydor." "Dream the waters."

The Ikthyan practice of sleeping near the sea, allowing the rhythm of waves to guide dreams toward prophetic truth. Whether this actually works is debated; whether Ikthyans believe it works is not.

Curses:

"Thareshikos kormeinax!" "May you swim alone forever!"

Solitude in Ikthyes is not peaceful—it's punishment. The fish swims with its school; the twin swims with their twin; the lover swims with the beloved. To swim alone is to be severed from meaning itself.

"Xeros kolympos." "Dry swimmer."

An insult implying that someone goes through the motions of connection without actually connecting: a swimmer whose water has evaporated, whose strokes accomplish nothing, whose life lacks the depth that gives motion meaning.

Maxim:

"Velmoranthos shana, shanmoranthos velori." "Dream the waters; the waters dream you."

The Ikthyan mysticism compressed into a single phrase. Consciousness isn't separate from reality; it's part of reality. When you dream the world, the world dreams you in return. The distinction between dreamer and dream is illusion; the sea doesn't distinguish between the fish and the current.

Celena found Ikthyan closest to star-speech. Both traded in imagery rather than information, in feeling rather than fact.

THE BEAST TONGUES

Khernos: The Speech of Centaurs

Khernos existed before humans learned to grunt.

The centaurs claim this without arrogance. To them, it's simply fact. When the first star fell and humans received fragments of celestial song, they received translations. The original remained with the horse-folk, the beings who had no need of stellar charity because they already possessed something greater.

Khernos sounds like thunder and hoofbeats. The phonemes require chest cavities deeper than any human possesses, vocal cords longer than any human throat could accommodate. Humans who try to speak Khernos produce noises that centaurs find either amusing or offensive, depending on what the human accidentally says.

Most human attempts translate roughly to "I have eaten my own tail."

Centaurs understand all twelve human dialects but refuse to speak them. Pride, certainly, but also practicality. Why should they diminish themselves to human limitations when humans should be rising to centaur standards?

One word matters: Khernashikos.

The honor-debt that binds species. When a centaur saves a human life—or, more rarely, when a human saves a centaur's—khernashikos comes into being. The debt cannot be refused, cannot be negotiated, cannot be escaped. It exists outside treaties and beyond kingdoms.

The brown centaur who carried Celena to safety spoke no human language she understood.

But she understood khernashikos.

Satyr Cant: The Speech of the Wild Folk

Satyrs don't have a language so much as a performance.

Their communication mixes Tragosi base-words with music, laughter, gesture, and the kind of sound effects that scribes simply write as "[untranscribable]." A satyr conversation looks like theater and sounds like a tavern brawl conducted by musicians.

"Pan'thorenos morethikos."

The phrase roughly translates as "Pan's children dance at world's end." It serves as greeting, farewell, oath, and prayer. The meaning shifts based on which syllables the speaker emphasizes, which gestures accompany the words, and whether anyone present has brought wine.

Humans who learn Satyr Cant, who become fluent in the laughing, singing, dancing tongue, are considered adopted by the herd. The satyrs call them "pan'thorenos"—children of Pan, regardless of their actual parentage.

Young Wex, the satyr child who would eventually befriend Ash and Winter, taught them the cant before he taught them anything else.

They learned faster than any adult could.

Nymph-Song: The Speech of Amaltheaee, Star Nymphs, and Sea Nymphs

Nymphs don't speak. They sing.

Each type of nymph has a unique melody. Lake nymphs like Amaltheaee produce sounds that humans describe as "blue laughter" or "liquid light", contradictory metaphors that reflect the impossibility of describing something that exists outside normal perception.

Star nymphs, like Celena's mother, sing in frequencies that the human ear registers as emotion rather than sound. Hearing star-song doesn't fill your ears; it fills your chest, your belly, your bones. You don't hear what the star nymph says.

You feel it.

Sea nymphs sing in tidal rhythms, their voices rising and falling with the moon's pull on the water. Their songs sound like waves crashing on distant shores, like the hush of surf retreating, like the deep silence between swells.

Starsingers, the Celena tradition claims, channel corrupted nymph-song through mortal throats. The prophecies aren't truly human. They're translations, approximations, shadows of what the nymphs themselves could express directly.

When Celena's mother left her as an infant, she sang a final song over her daughter's cradle.

Celena has never stopped trying to remember what it meant.