Pale Lights

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Angharad rose shortly after dawn, washed and came down to break her fast with the Eirenos.

Her back ached, as much from last night’s exertions as the fact that she’d burned an entire candle translating the secret correspondence. It had gone into the empty pages of the cyphered journal she’d obtained from the carriage, secrets added to secrets in a turn that stirred an ember of exhausted amusement. It was better than asking the servants for fresh paper in the middle of the night, anyway.

The spread waiting for her downstairs was impressive. Figs and apricots, bread and cheese and cold meats from the previous night’s dinner. There were even layered honey-and-nut pastries, still warm from the oven and deliciously juicy in the mouth. Between the food and a pot of mint tea, Angharad found herself presented with what should have been a delicious feast. She was, however, hardly able to savor it.

“You’ve a bit of honey on your lip, dear,” Lady Penelope innocently smiled, leaning across the table to wipe the corner of Angharad’s mouth with her thumb.

Body warring with the contrary impulses to both nip at the thumb teasingly and freeze like a scared rabbit, Angharad compromised and choked on the last of her pastry instead. She coughed into her fist and backed away, Lady Penelope’s lips quirking even higher at the sight as she withdrew that artful hand.

“Mother,” Cleon reproached. “She can dab her lips without your help.”

But he was smiling, quietly pleased. He must be taking the physical closeness as approval for a courtship, rather than seeing a spirit of temptation trying to drive Angharad wild at a breakfast table. It was all made all the more unfair by the fact that the older beauty had made it clear the previous evening that there would be no repeat of the tryst, meaning that Lady Penelope was winding her up with no intention of offering restitution for it.

Angharad forced herself to set aside all thoughts of trying to convince her otherwise, as dallying last night had been unwise enough already. Not that Penelope made it easy, constantly leaning forward in that flattering loose sleeping robe and once stretching as so enticing an angle that Angharad almost dropped her fork. Between the teasing, the little terms of endearment and the touching it was mortified and thoroughly flustered that Angharad retired to her room.

She twice doused her face in water, told herself in the mirror that no amount of full curves and limberness should so bedevil her, and returned downstairs only when composed.

Mercifully, Lady Penelope had retired. Cleon offered to show her to the eastern grounds of the estate, which he explained contained the family mausoleum and further out a small shrine to the spirit known as the Odyssean. She immediately agreed, eager to flee the manor and its teasing mistress.

It was a pleasant enough walk, Asphodelian mornings becoming the country estate. The light made the near-wild woods and paths enchanting, birds singing as they passed, and on their way to the mausoleum Cleon was just as careful of the pace as he had been the previous day. He really was quite caring, Angharad thought, which made her feel all the more guilty about having grabbed his beautiful mother by the hair and-

She coughed into her fist.

“It is not so old as it looks,” Cleon was telling her, gesturing at the square, pillared tomb of fine stone. “Built in my great-grandfather’s day, after the old one fell into disrepair.”

It was not a large mausoleum, Angharad saw, but it was finely made in pale gray stone and elegant in structure. The gates were reinforced with copper gone slightly green, but the grounds were well taken care of. Thick with Asphodelian crowns, those pale flowers Maryam was so curious about.

“The bodies had to be exhumed?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“We do not keep to the Oar but to the Sickle,” he said. “Eirenos burn their dead, lest the flesh be devoured by an ancient god of the earth.”

“The Oar,” Angharad slowly said, “being a reference to the spirit known as the Sculler?”

The most powerful carrion spirit of the isle, said to boast few temples but to keep a shrine and priests in every graveyard. Along with Oduromai and the Awn-Dam, it was one of the most broadly worshipped spirits. Unlike the arrogant frauds of Tianxia and the Someshwar the spirit only claimed to ferry souls to the Circle Perpetual, not guide reincarnation. Angharad thus found it more tolerable than most of its kind. Not so her host.

“It is the favored death god of the age,” Cleon sourly acknowledged. “He who ferries souls to the Circle. My line, however, can be traced back to the days of the Archeleans. We keep to older ways, though they are no longer spoken of in polite company.”

He cleared his throat.

“There were gods on this land before the Lierganen came, and though they are buried so deep as to have become nameless they yet remain,” he told her. “The day will come when the One Who Bears The Sickle wakes, and all the bodies given to the earth of Asphodel will be cut up and devoured whole.”

“A grim patron,” Angharad noted.

“Death is not meant to be pretty,” Cleon shrugged.

True enough, she conceded.

The pair had brought a waterskin and walked under enough fruit trees to take a few oranges, so they sat on the mausoleum steps to eat and drink before resuming the walk towards the shrine. Angharad inquired about these purported ancient roots of the Eirenos, learning that a distant ancestor had been a war captain under one of the first Archeleans to rise to throne, and found herself quite engaged with the tale when interruption reached them.

One of the manor servants arrived, flushed from hurrying to them, and after a bow and apologies was urged to speak by Lord Cleon.

“Word has come from Chalcia, my lord,” he said. “The first guest has arrived in town, and after a meal there intends to come to the manor.”

“Already?” Cleon frowned. “What time is it, Georgios?”

The man produced a small silver watch.

“Shortly before eleven, my lord.”

“Three hours early,” he grunted. “Unseemly.”

His expression darkened, as if another thought occurred, but he said nothing. The young lord apologized, telling Angharad they would have to cut their walk short and head back to the manor, but she waved the words away.

“Duty needs no apology,” she told him.

He seemed quite pleased with her at that, and even dark-haired Georgios looked approving until he noticed her noticing him and wiped the expression off his face. Ancestors, every compliment paid to her by this household burned shamefully. If any of them knew of the night she had spent with the lady of the house, they would be chasing her off with pitchforks instead of smiling so.

Tonight, she firmly decided, she would try to find Lord Cleon a woman to his tastes. He’d forcefully avoided looking at certain parts of her well enough for Angharad to have a decent idea of his tastes when it came to the physical, and she had suspicions as to his preferences in character. He was not a bad prospect at all for a husband, and it should not be too hard to find him someone suitable.

That this would go some way in allaying her guilt at having fucked his mother was not coincidental, but it was fortunate.

The servant made transparent excuses to let them return alone, and by the time they returned to the manor Cleon was told by one of his household riders that a carriage had already been sighted. Angharad, curious, accompanied him to the top of a rise close to the manor from which there was a fine view of the path leading to the Eirenos estate. A single carriage, she noted, but large. Pulled by four horses. Cleon sighed at the sight.

“Of course she arrived early,” he deplored. “Why would she not?”

“You recognize the carriage?” Angharad asked.

“I do,” he said.

Waiting until it turned at a curb, the nobleman pointed at the doors.

“See the blue and green paint?” he asked. “They are the colors of House Varochas.”

Blue and green… no, finish the talk first else her reaction would seem suspicious. Angharad paused, mentally sifting through the pages she had committed to memory at the palace.

“A house from the north of the valley, known for its fine timber,” she said, then frowned. “I thought their colors to be blue and brown, however.”

With a sleeping bear sprawled at the center of the heraldry, which she had thought rather charming. Cleon shot her a surprised, almost admiring look.

“The main house keeps to these,” he confirmed. “Only this particular visitor is a Varochas of Meda’s Rock, their kin. They’ve grand ambitions, so they chose colors of their own.”

Blue and green, she now let herself consider. The same hues the poacher had mentioned his accomplice to have glimpsed on the pouch that had paid for their services. After a day in Cleon’s company Angharad had largely dismissed any notion of him having arranged that ambush so she might be fixed to his kindness for the duration of her stay. He was too fine a man for that, and too proud. Which left her to look for another as the culprit.

“Ambitions?” she lightly encouraged.

Cleon snorted.

“They think to become the preeminent branch of their line,” he said. “Their lands are not particularly wealthy, but they do border hills that would be suitable for a very lucrative marble quarry.”

Ah, a familiar refrain. While the Duchy of Peredur was not so infamous for its border disputes as the isle of Uthukile, squabbles over water and grazing rights were commonplace. The sometimes extraordinarily petty means to which rival houses went to deny each other were favored seasonal gossip. When the Cawder had changed a small river’s course by exactly thirty feet to deny their hated Aberafan neighbors an enshrined right to sail down it, they’d become the toast of society for years.

“Am I to understand,” Angharad said, “that these hills sport an Eirenos hunting lodge?”

He nodded, lips quirking before the good humor faded.

“During the regency, a ruling was made that Eirenos hunting rights over these hills mean no quarry can be built without our consent as to build one would ruin the hunting and cross into our land,” Lord Cleon said. “The Varochas spent a fortune trying to buy a different verdict when Lord Rector Evander took the throne, but he laughed them out so their stratagem of choice changed.”

He coughed into his fist, side-eyeing her all the while.

“Theofania Varochas has made plain her intentions to wed me, and frequently stretches the bounds of propriety in seeking to achieve the match.”

His gaze on her was hopeful. Desiring, perhaps, of jealousy. That Angharad could not provide, but sympathy was within her means.

“I take it you do not welcome the pursuit,” she said.

“I would rather wed a viper,” Cleon Eirenos bit out. “The venom would be the same, but the conversation significantly more tolerable.”

She choked on a startled laugh. He was not usually so sharp in his words, but it suited him. The young lord’s fingers clenched into fists.

“I’ve no intention of taking a wife who will be her kin’s spy under my own roof, forever grasping at my property in their name.”

The tale, Angharad thought, told itself. The Varochas wanted that wedding, and lacking means to force it they were resorting to chasing off anyone who Lord Cleon might take a shine to – such as some upstart Malani noble exile with hardly a silver to her name. A family friend must have been at Lord Menander’s green party and heard the invitation, leading to the ambush she encountered on the road.

The poachers might actually have been speaking the truth when they said they were not to harm either Angharad or Mistress Katina. A death would have been a line too far, tainted the Varochas reputation. It would have been a blow to Lord Cleon’s reputation to twine his line with a family that so offended him, too, a sign of weakness. But Angharad arriving at Chalcia in nothing but her underthings, robbed blind and humiliated?

Oh, that would have been well within the bounds of acceptable and ruined her reputation thoroughly enough she could no longer be considered a suitable marriage prospect for a lord. An impoverished foreigner and embroiled in a scandal? No, Lady Penelope would have been forced to put her foot down even if her son persisted. It would have been too grave a mismarriage even if Angharad were interested in Cleon’s hand.

“I am surprised you would invite her to an evening at your manor, given your poor opinion of her,” Angharad noted.

“She is staying with House Pisenor, just to the east of my estate,” Lord Cleon darkly said. “Given our shared custody of a temple, it would be unwise to slight them by withholding an invitation - and Lady Theofania has not yet acted wildly enough for me to forbid her presence.”

His jaw clenched.

“Meanwhile I’ve not yet found a way to teach the Pisenor a lesson in the dangers of continuing to try my patience, though one day I assure you I will.”

That look in his eyes was even darker than his tone, so Angharad thought it best to move the conversation.

“A temple, you say,” she repeated, arm brushing against his. “To which spirit?”

“The Twin-Mother,” Lord Cleon said, then reddened and coughed into his fist again. “She is the lady of clandestine births, so it is custom that none seek to learn the face of those who visit the shrine for good health. As a token of appreciation, visitors then leave gifts in coin or goods.”

Coin would be easy enough to split two ways, Angharad thought, but goods? Those would get contentious, even if they were merely sold at market and the profits then split. No wonder Cleon preferred to suffer a riotous suitor rather than break with House Pisenor. The temple incomes would be significant revenue for a recovering house like his.

“Clandestine births,” she repeated, tone teasing. “How very gently put, Lord Cleon.”

“There is no need for discourtesy,” he replied, attempting dignity even though he was visibly embarrassed. “These things happen.”

Bastard children? More than anyone would like to admit. In Malan either siring or birthing such a child from a noble would see you elevated as consort, lawful status for yourself and the child, but such practices were not common among Lierganen peoples. Such arrangements were no doubt had regardless, but they were regarded as shameful and kept secret. Angharad rolled her shoulder, watching the Varochas carriage roll down the road to the manor.

“If guests are now arriving, I should ready myself,” she said. “By your leave, my lord?”

Cleon looked a little disappointed, but then he glanced at the carriage and must also have divined that Angharad standing by him while he welcomed his guest – as if the mistress of the house – was unlikely to result in anything pleasant.

“Of course,” he said. “I already look forward to your return.”

Angharad half-smiled at the gallantry, leaning on her cane as she spared the arriving carriage one last glance. Though no bloodshed had been intended, Theofania Varochas and her kin had sought to harm her.

Now she must decide what she was to do about that.

--

It made Angharad feel like a poor relation to wear the same dress among society twice in a row, but then nowadays she was a poor relation.

She was helped into her pink gown by one of the Eirenos maids, who after helping her adjust the embroidered cuffs told her that Lord Cleon had set aside jewelry for her use: an elegant gold chain necklace bearing an emerald the size of a fingernail. It had been in the family for some generations, the middle-aged maid told her. To accept that would be tacitly accepting his courtship, Angharad knew, even if it was merely a loan. Therefore, she could not.

Lady Penelope had a small pearl necklace sent up, along with a note that it came from her dowry and was not Eirenos property. She added, too, that she had not worn it in years and it was a fitting gift for a lovely guest. A sendoff present for a one-night lover, reading between the lines.

That one was rather more tempting to accept, Angharad would admit, but she declined it just as she had declined Lord Cleon’s offer. She would not take more from this mother and son when she had already taken too much. In every sense. Let her appear as exactly what she was: a lackland noble whose sole income was the kindness of benefactors. It would not do to get drunk on the trappings of a life she must learn to accept was no longer hers.

She was to be a watchwoman, now. Perhaps in many years it might be she was able to set down the black cloak and become a peer of Peredur once more, but until her oaths had run their course she must bind her pride to what she had sworn and not what she grieved. To keep an exile’s means only strengthens the trick being played, Angharad reminded herself. Let her feel pride in being a dutiful watchwoman, then, rather shame at being lackluster noble.

Though she had washed her body and hair, then redone her braids with the maid’s help, eventually Angharad ran out of reasons to dither upstairs and had to join the Eirenos in attending to the unwelcome guest. She found the three seated outside, in a garden pavilion that overlooked the dancing square.

Lady Theofania Varochas was, to her surprise, quite small. Shorter than Shalini, and slender in a way the gunslinger most definitely was not. She was darker in tan than most Asphodelians, with long black hair and thick eyelashes framing a strong bridge nose. Not a great beauty, Angharad thought, but hardly uncomely. Around the corner of slender black eyebrows touches of blue cosmetics evoked a butterfly’s wings, matching her long blue-and-white gown whose stripes all the way down.

Lord Cleon did not consider the Varochas all that wealthy, but they had sent their daughter into society bearing long earrings of gold and lapis with matching bangle bracelets and a splendid necklace made of polished, rectangular gold stripes. Either she had been sent with the family jewels, Angharad thought, or the Varochas had spent a fortune on adorning her to impress. Either way, it was a decision implying that the full weight of her house stood behind her.

Such a weight could be a great support, Angharad thought, but also a crushing burden. She wondered which one it was for Lady Theofania.

“And who would this be?” said Lady Theofania called out, a glass of wine in hand.

Cleon had pointedly sat as far as he could from her while still being at the same table, Lady Penelope settling between them to make the small slight less noticeable. Neither of them had a cup in hand, much less of wine, a subtle rebuke to their early guest.

“I present you Lady Angharad Tredegar, of Peredur,” Lady Penelope said.

She was radiant in a simple green grown, though there was hardly a thing on Vesper that would not suit such a beauty.

“Is she now?” Theofania said. “I had assumed otherwise, as my cousin described her wearing a similar gown at Lord Menander’s green party.”

The dark-haired lady offered a sharp little smile.

“You must believe it suits you very well, to favor it so.”

And just like that any half-formed consideration of sympathy evaporated. In Peredur, Angharad would have put a nasty cut on her champion’s nose for such words. Or Theofania’s own, if she wore duelist’s straps. But matters were not settled that way on Asphodel, and even if they had been she was not fit to be her own champion. She must, thus, match wind to wind.

“I do,” she directly replied, pushing down embarrassment. “Do you disagree?”

Surprise on Lady Theofania’s face, and an amused chuckle from Lady Penelope – who Angharad could not help but notice was appreciating the generous cut of the gown. Her ears reddened.

“It is not to the taste of the season,” Lady Theofania recovered. “But then I do not recall hearing of Peredur spoken as a great seat of fashion.”

Angharad cocked her head to the side, raising a faintly skeptical eyebrow.

“Have you heard much of Peredur, then, Lady Theofania?” she asked.

Most foreigners this far south thought it part of the same island as Malan, when they knew the name at all, so she had doubts. Theofania’s lips thinned and she looked away, eyes back on Lord Cleon.

“I see the lemons have ripened since I last visited,” she said. “Will you help me pick one, my lord? I am told the fruits of the valley are always sweetest.”

Subtle. After rubbing elbows with the intriguing children of izinduna and even their distant kin on Tolomontera, such blunt maneuvering felt rather elementary.

“Lemons are sour, Lady Theofania,” Cleon replied, rising to his feet. “And while I apologize, I must take my leave. There is much to see to before the guests begin arriving.”

He hardly even let Theofania nod at him before stalking off. Lady Penelope eased the following frustrated silence, telling Lady Theofania she would have lemons picked, pressed and sweetened for her in a drink, but then she also took her leave.

“I am to show Lady Angharad to the annex,” Lady Penelope told the other woman. “Unlike you she has had little occasion to see the Eirenos heirlooms.”

“Of course,” Lady Theofania replied, almost through gritted teeth.

And so Angharad found herself whisked away, leaning on her cane. She had, she realized with some amusement, never even sat down. Both Eirenos had found in her an excuse to escape and seized it with aplomb.

“Her mother taught her poorly,” Lady Penelope sighed.

She’d waited for them to be far enough their voices would not carry across the grass but Angharad still felt mildly uncomfortable.

“She does not seem to have found favor with your son,” she neutrally said.

“That,” Lady Penelope said, “and she’s yet to realize that the Pisenor are using her as a stalking horse.”

Angharad’s brow rose. House Pisenor, she had learned that very morning, were the eastern neighbors of the Eirenos. That and the hosts of Lady Theofania, who used them as a means attend events here at the manor.”

Presumably coin or favors were involved in the trade, given that in doing this the Pisenor were quite blatantly souring their relationship with the lord of the Eirenos.

“How so?” she asked.

“Their daughter is only twelve,” Lady Penelope said. “They are helping poor Theofania only because it keeps other candidates away from Cleon until their own girl comes of age.”

“And that same help is angering the man whose hand they would seek afterwards,” Angharad pointed out.

She got an amused look from the beauty, as if she were a little slow.

“That is how they will approach him,” Lady Penelope said. “Offering pretty young Aspasia and a healthy sum as reparations – likely dowering her with the Pisenor rights to the temple of the Twice-Mother. Lord Pisenor has been trying to become a patron of the temple to Oduromai near the mountains for a decade, but he will not be allowed to buy a seat so long as his house already has rights to another god’s temple.”

Angharad would have liked to call these Asphodelian intrigues pointless and labyrinthine, but the words would have been hypocritical. The country peers of Peredur were just as prone to plots and squabbles, one of the many reasons Mother had so praised her father’s stewardship. While Gywdion Tredegar ran Llanw Hall, there had been peace and amity with every other nearby house for nearly two decades.

No, all that it was fair to feel was lost. A stranger in this valley of cousins and old secrets, each speaking with an undertone she was the only one not to hear. Perhaps sensing her mood, Lady Penelope patted her arm.

“Cleon hasn’t noticed either,” the older beauty said. “And for all that schemes in Tratheke are more vicious, in some ways they are also simpler – I am sure you will find a place there when you return.”

Green eyes slid down the curve of Angharad’s neck to swell of her curves, leaving a trail of flushed skin as they did.

“You are certainly comely enough to draw someone’s eye,” Lady Penelope said, tone gone sultry.

Angharad cleared her throat and precipitously changed the subject.

“You favor a Pisenor match, then?” she asked.

“Materially, it is the most favorable offer Cleon is likely to get,” the lady of the house said. “Yet their approach is underhanded and there is no guarantee the girl would please him, so I withhold judgment.”

Meaning that if Angharad found a suitable prospect tonight and made introductions, she would not be stepping on Lady Penelope’s plans. Good. She was somewhat relieved when their walk to the annex ended not in the door upstairs being locked and the older beauty pressing her against the wall but instead in a servant being sent to fetch tea while they sat and chatted in Lady Penelope’s private sanctum.

Relieved and, perhaps, a little disappointed. But only a little.

Provided an excuse to avoid the no doubt fuming Lady Theofania, the two of them took it. Angharad could see through the open window that the uninvited guest was being attended to thoroughly by the servants, a green-liveried valet standing by her at all times waiting for orders, so she would not even be able to complain of neglect. Yet her face was dark, as she sat alone under the pavilion sipping at freshly pressed lemon water.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Why would it not be, when she had gotten nothing of what she came for?

When the other guests began arriving the hiding ended. First came House Saon, disgorging two large carriages packed to the brim, and the Iphine were not far behind. House Pisenor arrived a little later, at the same time Lord Arkol’s carriage came up the road. A few other families sent people, but none so many as the triumvirate of the Saon, Iphine and Pisenor. The three were, Angharad gathered, some of the leading houses of the lands between the central grainlands of Tratheke Valley and the capital itself.

Certainly the talk turned to complaints about the ‘wheat lords’ of the middle plains often enough.

That helped Angharad grasp why Phaedros Arkol, an eastern noble owning large grain fields, had attended tonight beyond his business ties to Lord Cleon’s late father. Not only had that Arkol bought the last of the Eirenos lands on the eastern coast two generations back, Lord Arkol was currently courting the natural opponents of his rivals in the grain trade.

No doubt the point was to support the lords closest to Tratheke so they might try to bleed the valley’s grain lords with tolls and force the price at market to rise. Which would in turn keep his own grain competitive despite the need to carry it to the Lordsport markets from much further away.

Lady Penelope was the mistress of the house, and thus swiftly attended to by a circle of the local matriarchs. Unsurprisingly, she was also approached by a parade of lords of myriad ages – including Lord Arkol, whom she deemed a goat and chased away laughingly. Lord Cleon was the host and thus constantly in demand. Angharad deftly avoided a suggestion he accompany her for introductions, as that would have been something of a statement, instead fending for herself.

Cleon made a point of regularly returning to speak with her, however, which did not go unnoticed. She could use that.

Avoiding the Pisenor, she tried to approach the Iphine but found them haughty and uninterested. They were all richly dressed and sought after in conversation, which let her deduce they were the most powerful of the attending nobles – or at least the wealthiest. Among them she’d noticed twins bearing swords, though rapiers in the Sacromontan style rather proper blades, which made that haughtiness unfortunate given that one of the said twins was a handsome blue-eyed woman.

She turned to the Saon, next, who seemed a jollier lot. The man she approached, a bearded sort in his twenties and stockily built, not only took to her company but was more than willing to make introductions. That everyone seemed to have heard the wild tales from Chalcia served to make her a figure of interest, which helped even if it involved denying flat untruths so repeatedly her tongue was growing tired.

Castor Saon, who insisted on being called Castor, was introducing her to a girl from one of the smaller houses when Lord Gule arrived. The great Malani lord made a ripple simply by entering, his manservant trailing behind, but given the importance of her task Angharad could only spare him a nod. He returned it with a smile, which impressed both the Asphodelians with her.

Lady Irida was a slender woman of eighteen with callouses on her hand that turned out to be from her great interest in archery. Angharad lingered in her company, long enough that when Cleon came to visit they spoke. Unfortunately, the lack of interest on his part was quite evident. She hardly got a second look, and in truth did not seem all that interested either.

A wash. Next.

Lady Selene would be rather more to Cleon’s tastes, Angharad was confident of it. Tall and lushly figured, with a scar on her neck that turned out to be from a fall instead of something more adventurous. Still, she liked riding. That was a start. Unfortunately Lady Selene began flirting rather outrageously with Castor within moments of their introduction, her guide being an admittedly a good-looking man of genial disposition. They barely slowed down when Cleon came to visit, and Angharad would not be surprised should the pair disappear at some point in the evening and reappear slightly disheveled.

Her guide gallantly kept ferrying her around afterwards through introducing Cleon to Lady Danai, who as quite pretty but uninterested in marriage, and Lady Agape whom the young lord did not get on with at all. It had, by then, become rather clear to Castor what it was she was attempting.

“Good effort,” he whispered, “but it won’t keep Lady Theofania from coming for your scalp.”

Ah. Angharad supposed it was a likelier guess that she was trying to avoid a well-connected noblewoman’s wrath rather than acting in guilt at having bedded Lady Penelope. Castor still offered a solution, though unsurprisingly the woman in question was a relative. Lady Koralia was his cousin from a different Saon side branch, and though unflattering dressed – her gown was not well fitted and she moved awkwardly in it – the clothes and ungainly haircut were hiding what Angharad found to be good looks.

Though quite shy, after a bit of talk she grew in confidence and revealed she was mad for bird hunting. Lady Koralia proudly expounded on her three hunting dogs, which she had raised herself, and on minute differences in the fowler guns available in Asphodel. From the glazed look in Castor’s eyes, this was not the first time he heard this speech. Even more promisingly, when Lord Cleon came by to visit she blushed and fumbled her curtsy – which he laughed off, coming off rather charming.

Hmmm. That one had potential, perhaps.

Instead of continuing the hunt, she decided to stick with this particular prospect. This saw her enfolded by a gaggle of Saon youths, of which there were a dozen within years of her own age. Resolute to make a good impression, Angharad traded with them stories of Malan for gossip about previous gatherings. Lord Iasos Saon, oldest man from the main line at nineteen, had the clout and presence to lead the conversation on the Saon side and no qualms in doing so.

“It was a sight to see,” Iasos assured her. “Twenty graybeards, drunks as skunks and brandishing muskets older than them, haring off after a downed pegasus - and when they finally shot it dead, trampling half a thicket, they found it was just a stag with large fern leaves stuck in his antlers.”

“No,” Angharad grinned.

“It only looked like wings because they scared him off at a run,” Iasos laughed. “To this day, my uncle insists the real pegasus simply got away.”

His little sister, Maria, waved the long bell sleeves of her dress in an attempt to convey beating wings. As she was a bright eyed eight-year-old, it was most adorable.

“Look sharp, Iasos,” Castor suddenly muttered. “The moura is headed our way.”

The older Saon grimaced. Angharad tried to discreetly eye what they were being warned about, leaning on her cane, but there were too many Saons in the way.

“The moura?” she murmured.

“It is a kind of lemure,” Iasos said. “It takes the appearance of a beautiful woman drowning in a river, and when one approaches…”

“It hugs you tight and drowns you,” Maria theatrically said, bell sleeves flying as sinisterly as they could.

Angharad resisted the urge to pinch her cheek.

A moment later Lady Theofania arrived, flanked by the fair-haired twins Angharad had learned were the eldest Iphine children, and she suppressed a spurt of laughter. Ah. The Saon were not particularly fond of Lady Theofania either, then. Odd that Theofania would be with that pair when her hosts were rival to that house, but then she’d arrived long before the Pisenor had. That relationship might be more distant than believed.

It had been a given that Lady Theofania would come for her ‘scalp’, as Castor had put it, but the sheer bluntness of the attack still startled her.

After pointedly greeting only Lord Iasos and his sister, the two Saon of the main line – the Iphine did not even bother with little Maria – Lady Theofania addressed Angharad without having first greeted her. That was already quite rude, and promised to get worse.

“I am surprised to find you in company, Lady Angharad,” the other woman smiled.

“If you are to insult me,” the Pereduri suggested, “try not require my collaboration in doing so. I find myself disinclined to help you.”

She heard Castor hastily turn a snort into a coughing fit.

“Mouthy,” the woman of the Iphine twins noted.

Tall and elegant with long blonde hair, she would have been a beauty if not for that carved sneer.

“One assumes,” Lady Theofania tittered, “given how I am told she went into the woods with Lord Cleon without a chaperone for… hours.”

She fanned herself.

“If you cannot afford a second dress, you must have had to pay for the hospitality somehow.”

What had she just said?

Angharad’s hand reached for a blade that was not at her side. While it wasnonchalant of her to have taken a walk with an unmarried man without someone to look after his virtue, Theofania had gone quite a bit further than simply insinuating a sort of general impropriety. To so attaint someone’s honor was well worth a death on the dueling field. Perhaps smelling the black fury off her, Lord Iasos slid into the conversation.

“Ah, yes, Cleon Eirenos,” he sardonically said. “That famous libertine, seducing maidens left and right.”

“One does not need to seduce a whore, Iasos,” Lady Theofania blandly said.

Her fingers gripped her cane until the wood creaked.

“Would you care to repeat the word you just used, girl?” Angharad coldly asked.

“Whore,” Theofania said. “What of it?”

She then flicked a glance at the male twin, who stepped forward with a shallow smile.

“Do you feel your honor to be impugned?” he asked. “I am told that Malani settle such matters with duels.”

He opened his arm, warmly welcoming save for the glint in his eyes. That was all poison.

“I happen to have some small skill with a blade,” the Iphine lordling said. “It would be my pleasure to stand for Lady Theofania so we might end the disagreement in the manner of your people.”

So that was the play, Angharad thought. Insult her so harshly she could not possibly refuse to defend her honor with a blade, then pit her against a fine sword while crippled so she would be twice disgraced in her defeat. Blunt, brutal, and admittedly difficult to extricate herself from. Not that she intended to do any such thing. This would end with lifeblood on the grass and Theofania Varochas weeping.

What did the Iphine get from this? The woman’s eye dipped to Angharad’s arm, as if looking for something under the sleeve, and then she put it together. They were fencers, both those twins, and wanted to make a name for themselves by defeating a mirror-dancer. That they would be fighting one using a cane would, presumably, be left out of the tale when it was retold.

Time to teach them the difference between a mirror-dancer and a child playing at swords. She did not need more than three steps to slash open a fool’s skull.

The confrontation had drawn the eyes of the crowd, murmurs spreading as room was made around them in a circle. Lord Cleon looked furious and was making his way towards them, but his mother held him back with a blank face. At their side Lord Gule stood with his horn pressed to the ear while his manservant presumably whispered a report. And looking at the richly dressed induna, at the sympathetic grimace he sent her way, Angharad saw it then. What she must do.

It came like a bolt of lightning, and just as pleasantly.

She fought it. Of course she did. It was madness, it ran against every instinct and every learned lesson. It would make her look like… Fingers clenched painfully. Surely there was another way, she thought as she looked into that swaggering Iphine’s eyes. Something that would not feel like swallowing acid. She looked but did not find one. There was only one key to the lock.

Angharad Tredegar stood there, feeling very alone, and tried to tell herself she must be proud of what was to follow.

“You try to duel a woman unarmed, leaning on a cane,” she said.

The Iphine snorted. Lady Theofania smiled sharply.

“Did you not wield a saber to drive off bandits and lemures?” Lady Theofania asked. “Are you not a swordmistress of Malan?”

“Unless these are lies,” the female twin said.

“Unless you paid for rumors create repute at an evening attended by your betters,” the other idly added. “Which is it, Lady Angharad?”

He drummed his fingers against the cup of his rapier.

“Are you a liar or a coward?”

Liar. Coward. Whore. Any of these insults were enough for them to deserve being cut down. And oh, Angharad knew she could. The male twin, he had callouses but his boots were too soft. On grass, all it’d take was a good feint and he’d slip. Life snatched out before he hit the ground. The other, the woman, her blade was too thin. To make it lighter, she must not have wanted too much muscle. Bait, parry and a good snap of the wrist would make a clean break of the steel about an inch up the guard.

And they were asking for it. Literally asking for it!

But Angharad, instead, made herself look down. She swallowed the bile, feeling the eyes on her, and instead of replying she walked away. Conversation erupted in her wake as she tacitly admitted to at least one of the accusations, the humiliation burning. Teeth clenched so hard she felt like they might pop, she ignored the looks as best she could and passed by a furious-looking Cleon to return inside the manor.

No one followed her.

The servants looked confused when she limped past them and headed straight for the front of the manor, the entrance with the columns, and there she stood alone in the shade. She had just tossed aside her honor, Angharad knew. She felt like throwing up, like shouting. Like bloodying her fucking hand on the pillar. Never, never had she been so humiliated. And she had let it happen like some whipped dog.

By now half the garden would be calling her a fraud, the other a coward. Sleeping God, even in Tratheke they’d hear about a scandal like this. And she had done it to herself on purpose.

“A watchwoman,” she hoarsely whispered. “A watchwoman, not a lady.”

Leaning against the pillar as much as her cane, warm forehead against the cool stone, Angharad straightened when she heard the door open behind. It would be Lord Cleon, she thought, come to… Only it wasn’t. The very last person she expected to follow stepped out the door, striped dress trailing behind her. Lady Theofania Varochas looked at her, then sighed.

If Angharad had a knife on her, she might well have plunged it into her eye. She spent a moment mastering herself, the other woman hesitating a moment before she spoke.

“It was not personal, if that is any comfort,” Lady Theofania said.

There was no hint of apology or remorse in those blue eyes. Lady Theofania’s manners were brisk, almost businesslike.

“It rather felt otherwise,” Angharad evenly replied.

“It is a house matter,” Lady Theofania told her. “I do not blame you for trying to make Cleon into your gold spoon, Lady Angharad. We make our way however we can.”

She scowled.

“But you should have investigated him more deeply,” Lady Theofania said. “Cleon Eirenos is already spoken for.”

Angharad scoffed.

“You think that production you put on will endear you to him?” she asked. “Think again.”

He had looked furious, not impressed, and already despised Theofania. That episode was unlikely to change Cleon’s opinion that she was a viper. Though it would, at least, give Angharad an excuse to avoid him in society going forward. If she was still allowed in society at all, after… that.

“I do not expect I will ever be dear to him,” Lady Theofania dismissed. “This is not to be a love match. What I do expect, Lady Angharad, is that the example made of you will scare off the chaff.”

An example, Angharad realized. Theofania Varochas had made her into an example for potential rivals, and the absurdity of it almost made her laugh. It will get you no closer to wedding him, she thought. The more you attempt to force his hand, the deeper his hatred will be entrenched. For all that Theofania was attempting to play this as some masterful blow, Angharad could smell the desperation beneath it.

Lord Cleon despised the Varochas for their reaching grasp, and despised Lady Theofania in particular. Worse, all involved knew this. It must be a heavy weight to bear, her houses’ hopes of prominence. Especially when the game had been rigged against her from the start. No wonder she was growing reckless in her attempts to secure the match, or at least scare off contenders. Angharad felt a twinge of pity, if only a twinge.

“Does this conversation have a point?” she asked.

“You need not worry I intend to run you out of Tratheke society,” Lady Theofania informed her. “Or harm your reputation further – as I said, Lady Angharad, this was not personal. Marry as you will, and with my best wishes, so long as you stay away from Cleon Eirenos.”

“And if I decline?” Angharad curiously asked.

Theofania’s slender face hardened.

“Then I will be forced to bring to bear against you the full weight of my house,” she said. “It would be unpleasant business for the both of us, I suspect, but needs must.”

She feigned consideration of Theofania’s words, letting the seconds stretch heavily – thick as taffy. Eventually she nodded.

“I do not command his attentions,” Angharad warned.

“Nor do I expect you to,” Lady Theofania replied, politely nodding.

She hesitated a moment.

“You may expect every due courtesy from me when next we meet,” she added. “I regret the damage that may have been inflicted on your prospects, and will keep it in mind over the next months.”

A polite way to say that, should Angharad’s reputation turn out thoroughly ruined by this, the Varochas may arrange a pity marriage for her with whatever household man they could rustle up. It was the least kind of mercy, but mercy nonetheless. Angharad suddenly found she believed her when she'd said there had been nothing personal about this, not that it made her any less of a viper.

“Good night, Lady Theofania,” Angharad replied.

The dismissal was courteous but clear.

“Good night, Lady Angharad,” Theofania replied, inclining her head.

She was left alone on the steps, looking up at the starry sky. How long should she stay? At least half an hour, Angharad decided. She must, after all, sell the notion that she was drowning in her humiliation. Cut up inside.

Bleeding deeply enough that Lord Gule would believe her, when she came to find him and spoke of moving on with her life.

--

Lord Gule, in deference to both his rank and the distance he had traveled to attend, was to be accommodated in the guesthouse overnight. As the feast was not yet over, however, he was not there. Instead, when Angharad put on a chastened face and asked the Eirenos servants where she might find the ambassador, she was directed to a small smoking parlor on the main floor of the manor. None offered to accompany her.

Evidently her humiliation had made her someone to avoid.

Lord Gule was seated inside on a comfortable cushioned chair, smoking a pipe, but when she was brought in by his valet – Jabulani, she recalled – he displayed good manners by putting it out. Bringing out his listening horn, he invited her to sit with him.

“I can only take so long of these evenings before I have to rest my mind a span,” he told her. “Smoking makes for a fine excuse and does not dull the mind as drinking overmuch would.”

She nodded silently, lowering herself into the seat across from his. Angharad had wondered how to approach this, ever since the notion first occurred to her in that bolt from the black, and decided against deception. She was not a deft hand at such games and never would be. Best, she thought, to keep to the truth.

“I have,” Angharad quietly said, “rarely been so shamed in my life as I have been tonight.”

Never, arguably. She had been on the bad end of tricks, when on the dueling circuit, and she’d had some enemies in Peredur society. None had ever shamed her as Theofania and her Iphine accomplices.

“A vicious one, the Varochas girl,” Lord Gule agreed. “Not that it will get her what she wants, but at that age it is a common mistake to confuse a successful plan for a wise one.”

She swallowed, then straightened herself from the slump she had consciously made herself fall into.

“You told me, once, that a time would come where I would begin thinking about the rest of my life.”

Angharad paused, met his eyes.

“That I should call on you, then.”

His gaze was gentle.

“You have had a difficult evening, Lady Angharad,” Lord Gule said. “Perhaps you should rest instead. It will pass.”

“It will not,” Angharad flatly replied. “This or its like will happen, again and again, so long as I remain as I am. That is no way to live.”

And there she let her very real anger at the public humiliation show. A long moment passed, Lord Gule watching with calm eyes, then he turned to his valet. The man had been inside the entire time, standing by the door silent and still.

“I told you,” the older noble said. “She is clever, she was bound to realize it soon: there is no future in being a courtier in Asphodel.”

He leaned back into the cushions afterwards, looking almost satisfied.

“You remember Jabulani, my attendant,” Lord Gule said.

Angharad nodded at the near-shaved man, whose stony expression she remembered from their short encounter at the green party. Lord Gule smiled.

“He holds, as it happens, a second position among my staff.”

Stomach sinking, Angharad turned her eyes back to Jabulani – whose expression had not changed, and who bowed at her again. When he straightened, he offered her a small coin to peruse. Lacquered wood, the color of copper, bearing on one side the shell of a helmet turtle and on the other a slender crown. Lefthand House. The man was ufudu, and Angharad felt her blood turn to ice.

“The Lefthand House greets you, Lady Tredegar,” Jabulani said.

Angharad kept her face blank, slowly nodding, and flicked a worried glance at Lord Gule. The induna shrugged.

“Jabulani serves the will of our queen on Asphodel, as do we,” he said. “There is nothing to fear.”

There was always something to fear when it came to the Lefthand House. Servants of the High Queen they may be, but Angharad’s own brush with their sort had made it plain they were nothing less than poison.

“Well met,” Angharad carefully said.

Did the man know the circumstances of her exile from the Isles? Did Lord Gule? Ancestors, did they know about Imani? She could not even be sure if they knew her to be a blackcloak. So many questions that she all bit down on until her gums felt as if they would bleed.

“You are called to service,” Jabulani told her. “Menander Drakos has shown lasting interest in you. Are you his lover?”

She choked at the blunt, rude inquiry.

“Sleeping God, no,” she vehemently replied.

“Then it must be on behalf of your patron,” the ufudu concluded. “Whoever sought him to introduce you into Tratheke circles.”

He then stared at her in pregnant silence, as if ordering her to elaborate on that patron’s identity. It appeared, at least, that the rector’s palace was not so porous as to reveal she was a blackcloak part of the Thirteenth Brigade. They would know there was no such patron otherwise.

“I would rather not speak of the matter,” Angharad curtly replied.

Lord Gule touched the other man’s arm.

“Even exiles can have friends, Jabulani,” he gently said. “Let us speak, instead, of the request Her Perpetual Majesty would make of us."

The ufudu hummed, seeming unconvinced, but moved on nonetheless.

“Regardless of the reason, Lord Menander has taken a shine to you,” Jabulani said. “It is expected that he will invite you to a private dinner at his personal mansion in two weeks. Every two months, the man invites his inner circle and those he intends to bring into it to a private evening. We require that you attend.”

The hint of frustration on that stony face, Angharad decided, meant that the Lefthand House had not been able to get someone in despite efforts otherwise. Her esteem for Menander Drakos’ attention to his security rose a notch. Excitement mounted, carefully buried. She had wounded her honor, tonight, but it was opening some sort of gate. It had not been for nothing.

“Why?” she bluntly asked.

“It has come to our attention,” the ufudu said, “that Menander Drakos might have obtained stolen property. We would have you confirm the presence of an object in particular.”

She said nothing, only meeting his eyes. It was Lord Gule who continued.

“It would have the look of a wine press,” the older man said, “only of Antediluvian make.”

The infernal forge, Angharad realized with utter bafflement. They were talking about the infernal forge. It took every scrap of mastery she held to keep herself from visibly reacting. Relief tested that control again, when it struck her that they could not know about Imani if they were asking her this. This part of the Lefthand House does not know who I am.

Why - no, it made sense. The ufudu were hoarders of secrets and there was no need for the ambassador to faraway Asphodel to know anything of House Tredegar’s disgrace. Word would have had time to carry, since the fall of her house, but no reason to. And had Imani not said that the High Queen did not count her as a foe? There would be no need for the Lefthand House to follow her too closely.

“That artifact is best shipped back to Malan,” Jabulani continued. “We do not require that you obtain it, only to confirm its presence on the premises.”

Stolen property, best shipped back to Malan. How carefully they were implying the infernal forge to be the High Queen’s rightful property without ever stating as much. Angharad might well have been fooled had she not known better. Had she been inclined to trust them, such trickery would have ended the notion. As she had not, it was mere confirmation that the pair sought to use her.

“I could do this,” Angharad finally replied.

Lord Gule softly chuckled.

“Could, indeed,” he said, then glanced at his companion. “I will handle the haggling, Jabulani. Kindly leave us to it.”

The stony-faced man studied them both, then shallowly nodded.

“We will speak again,” he told Angharad, then rose.

Though he closed the door softly, almost without a sound, the silence that followed in his wake was oppressively loud. Lord Gule set aside his listening horn a moment to help himself to a sip of brandy from a cup she’d not even noticed and looked like it had hardly been touched. Then he set it down with a smile, picking up his horn.

“You were roughly done, tonight,” he said after putting it to his ear, “but sometimes it is in the dark that we see most clearly. Good can come of evil.”

Good can come of anything, Angharad thought. That does not excuse evil. An induna ought to know better.

“I cannot go back,” she said. “That can no longer be denied.”

She was speaking truth, merely not the truth he thought. Lord Gule nodded approvingly.

“It can be difficult, leaving the Isles behind, but there is more than one hearth under firmament,” he said.

He then cleared his throat with an undertone of embarrassment.

“I will not ask as to the circumstances of your departure from Peredur,” Lord Gule said. “Jabulani looked through the latest list from the Lefthand House and your name is not on it, which is enough for me.”

Angharad’s eyes widened. It was said that the ufudu kept account books of traitors much as a treasurer would of coin, but never before had she heard it spoken out loud. So Imani spoke true, when she said Her Perpetual Majesty wishes me no ill will. She was not marked a traitor by the royal court, despite the Tredegar name being struck off the rolls of nobility.

“Whatever troubles there might have been in your past, Lady Angharad, they can be put to rest by lending aid to the Lefthand House over this matter of stolen property,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow, openly unimpressed. Even had she truly been the sort of exile she portrayed herself to be, this would have been a short thrift reward. The man laughed.

“They will not promise you more,” he said. “They believe your hand can be forced, you see, which Jabulani is the kind of man to prefer to the trade of favors. But it does not matter, for I would make you an offer in their stead.”

Angharad inclined her head to the side. She saw the guile at play here. Play up the Lefthand House as an enemy while binding all rewards to himself. A straightforward enough trick that would yet have been clutched at like lifesaving driftwood by a more desperate woman. It was rare for her to feel grateful for the Watch, but in that moment she did. How tempting would Gule’s words have been, for a woman downing along at sea? It had been good fortune, to find protectors before she ever came here.

Angharad waited in silence for the terms now, the true offer, but instead Lord Gule’s conversation took a surprising turn.

“You will have heard I am in talks with the Lord Rector on Her Majesty’s behalf, I expect,” he said. “Tell me, Lady Angharad: what is it that you believe Malan wants of this Antediluvian shipyard?”

Her brow rose.

“Skimmers, presumably,” she said. “I have not heard of them being able to build anything else.”

“That is the common assumption,” Lord Gule acknowledged. “Certainly, that is what Evander Palliades believes. It is also incorrect.”

“The aether engines alone, then?” she tried.

They would be the most valuable part, though given that anything made of tomic alloy was worth its weight in gold no part of a skimmer could be called inexpensive. He smiled thinly, shaking his head.

“What we want,” Lord Gule said, “is the whole shipyard to be irreparably scrapped.”

She choked in surprise.

“Pardon?”

“Save for Ingalapur on Tower Coast, there is no known city boasting large-scale shipyards capable of producing skimmers fit for war,” the ambassador said. “The capacity to build and repair such ships exists elsewhere, certainly, but it… artisanal.”

Angharad frowned.

“While the shipyard under Asphodel would have such capacity.”

He inclined his head in agreement.

“That is troubling for us in several ways,” Lord Gule continued. “Should the Tianxi obtain a fleet of war skimmers, the balance of power in the Trebian Sea will tip their way. The Republics will attempt to seize hegemony over the region and might well succeed.”

Unless Malan sent in its own fleet to check them, Angharad silently added. Which would be a nightmarish tar pit of a war, having to support a hundred small island states against the Republics while the other great powers meddled at every turn.

“The right treaties could avoid this,” she noted. “An agreement for Asphodel to limit its sales to the Republics, at least regarding skimmer warships. Why is the outright destruction of the shipyard desired?”

“Because,” Lord Gule said, “even should a diplomatic miracle be achieved and such a treaty be installed, the proliferation of the civilian ships would still be disastrous to Malani trade.”

It took her a moment to grasp why, but though Angharad Tredegar had not been raised to be a great lady of Malan neither had she been raised to be a fool. Besides, she was better taught than most when it came to the politics of the waves.

“It would crack open the Straying Sea,” Angharad belatedly realized.

The stretch of sea between the isles of Malan and the continent, deep in darkness and famously prone to Gloam storms, was a great source of wealth for the kingdom. Malani dominance over it had been cemented by two things: the first was the Serpentine Roads. These were a great modern wonder, pathways of floating Glare lighthouses built at the order of the Queen Perpetual which foreign merchants could use to traverse the region safely – but at the price of tolls, and along routes that favored Malani ports and trade.

The second was ironwood sailing ships, which sailed faster than any other wooden vessel and cut clean through lesser Gloam currents. Ironwood ships were how Malan had first been able to reach the continents to the north and the west, and how the High Queen’s ships could treat the Straying Sea as their backyard instead of the ship killer it was for every other great power. Skimmers could do everything ironwood ships could, which was hardly trouble when they were so rare, but should they become… perhaps not common a sight, but no longer rare?

The seal on the ambitions of the other great powers would be broken, madness spilling out on all the world.

“Exactly so,” Lord Gule praised, as if she were a student as the isikole. “Bad enough if the Tianxi got their hands on a fleet of skimmer warships, but at least their ambitions are to the south and the east. If the Izcalli did, or the Someshwari?”

He grimaced.

“It is not only damage to our trade and rampant piracy that we might face, but fleets of skimmers sailing out to found colonies rival to our own.”

“A grave danger,” Angharad murmured.

“I tell you this,” Lord Gule said, “so that you might understand that by tying his fortune to the shipyard so closely Evander Palliades has dug his own grave.”

Her eyes sharpened.

“The assassin…”

The ambassador shook his head.

“There is no need for that,” he said. “It can be done properly. There is a strong claimant for the throne and her supporters will not suffer that shipyard to become her property. If owning it can make of a threat of the ailing Palliades, it could make an already powerful house untouchable. No, by simple virtue of the nature of her cause she will have to dismantle the shipyard.”

‘Her’. Minister Apollonia Floros, Angharad thought. It had to be, even though Lord Gule was avoiding speaking the name outright.

“A sad end for the Palliades,” she finally said. “But such is the turn of history.”

She suspected Song was taken with the man, but as the Watch seemed indifferent to who sat the throne of Asphodel the truth was that Angharad saw little need to concern herself with it. After tonight, what little warmth she’d had for the people of Asphodel had cooled. I am a woman of the Watch, she told herself. I came here on contract, and owe not a thing more.

“You may be wondering,” Lord Gule said, “why instead of speaking of reward for your services I instead attended to such grand matters.”

“The thought occurred,” Angharad replied.

And now came the offer. Finally. Let it be that you are a cultist, she thought. Ancestors preserve me, but I hope that you are wicked. Nothing else could possibly make what she had out herself through tonight worth it. Had Song’s inspection of the rector’s palace not proved a dead end she would not have had to, but it had been. And she owed the Thirteenth too much not to reach for the key when it was on the table.

Even if the key was forged out of her public humiliation.

“Apollonia Floros will sit the throne of Asphodel,” Lord Gule bluntly said, dispensing with the earlier pretense, “but she will not rule. A more… discerning circle will see to that. One to which I was invited for representing the might of Malan, and to which I would invite you in turn.”

“A hidden faction,” Angharad murmured, meaning ‘cult’.

Her hear beat against her ears, blood rushed up. Was this it? Had she been approached by the cult of the Golden Ram at last?

“A society assembled under the auspices of a spirit,” Lord Gule said. “When change comes to Asphodel, Malan and I will find ourselves showered in rewards– but then the allies of today will become tomorrow’s rivals. I seek a champion to stand at my side in anticipation of that tomorrow, and what finer champion can there be than a mirror-dancer?”

Angharad swallowed. She’d done it. She had done it, tonight, and without once wielding her sword – save perhaps against herself.

“I can hardly walk without a cane,” Angharad said. “I would be a decoration, not a champion.”

Go on, she thought. Sell me your healing spirit.

“Nothing is absolute, save for the Sleeping God,” the ambassador replied

Reaching at his belt, he removed from a slender silken pouch a small sphere wrapped in paper. It was pressed into Angharad’s hand and she opened it to find a small red medicinal ball – it smelled faintly metallic and was warm to the touch.

“Eat it,” Lord Gule instructed. “Not here, it would be too noticeable, but when there are fewer eyes on you.”

“What does it do?” Angharad asked.

“It is a taste of what the Golden Ram can offer you,” he said. “Healing for a span of eight hours.”

She breathed in sharply. That was tempting, even knowing it was likely a trap.

“And this spirit can heal me for good, without need of a pill?” she pressed.

“I so swear,” Lord Gule smiled. “I have, after all, been promised the same – and would already be whole again, if such a boon was not at risk of being discovered.”

They knew someone like you was coming, Song, Angharad thought. You never found a trace of the Golden Ram at court because they went into hiding long before we reached this shore. The older man leaned forward, closing her fingers around the paper and the pill.

“Do as the Lefthand House asked and you will have bought a pardon from Malan,” Lord Gule gently said. “Then when the dust has settled on Asphodel, Lady Angharad, you can stand by my side in the open - and without any need for a cane.”

Found you, Angharad Tredegar thought.

And though it was as ugly as victories got, this one felt like a first payment on a debt.