\hypertarget{chapter-3-chat}{%
\chapter{Chat}\label{chapter-3-chat}}



\epigraph{``I must say, Chancellor, you've become quite the
conversationalist.''}{Dread Empress Maledicta II}



The room had been a gaol, once upon a time. Not one the Fairfaxes ever
owned up to having, but the ruling dynasty of Callow had not remained on
the throne by being faint-hearted. Unlike the luxurious prison that was
the Songbird's Cage, this was a dark and ugly pit. Not the kind of place
you sent someone if you ever expected them to come out. The late and
unlamented Governor Mazus had apparently used it as dumping grounds for
people he believed would cause more terror by being disappeared than
known dead, and expanded what had once been a single pair of rooms to a
large underground complex of seven. I'd had it sealed off before my
coronation, and not a soul was allowed here now. Bare stone walls
surrounded me, cleared of manacles, and the only ornament was the seat
I'd brought down here myself. I closed the steel door behind me and
froze it shut before taking a deep breath. Winter came easy.

It always did.

Ice crept across the walls hungrily, gaping maws of frost that devoured
every nook and cranny until all that was left was a hall of glittering
mirrors. It'd been as difficult as snapping a finger, and there was a
part of me that delighted in using the might of my mantle. But then the
world sharpened. Grew jagged. I could feel, with dim horror, everything
that I was begin to calcify. To set in immovable stones. That would have
been dangerous enough, but I was not merely fae. My title was Winter's
and Winter knew nothing as intimately as darkness and hunger. I sat down
on the chair and forced myself to think as little as I could. It was
almost cowardly, but I'd rather not have to confront the kind of
thoughts that would surface if I pondered anything too deeply in this
state. Gods, I could use a drink. The alcohol was one of the few things
that blunted the edges of this. That made me feel like I was still
human. But even if I'd been willing to embrace that crutch right now, I
could not. Hakram had, before he left, exacted an oath from me.

\emph{Never while on campaign, or attending affairs of state}. The oath
was to end with our reunion, whenever that may be. Adjutant had
expressed\ldots{} worries to me in private, twice now. I'd been
irritated, considering Indrani drank like a fish and no one ever
lectured \emph{her}, but he was right in that Archer wasn't wearing a
crown. Unlike me. The sharpness of the ache for a cup in my hand was
whispering to me that Hakram might just have been right. He did have
that nasty habit, didn't he? I breathed in and out slowly, then reached
for the power again. This had been an aspect, once. Fall. Now it was
just a part of me, true as hair or toes. When it'd been crystallized
into a single word it'd been stronger -- no perhaps not that, simply
more \emph{rigid} -- but whatever had been lost was more than made up by
the breadth of what I could now achieve with this power. Before, I would
never have been able to forge this half-world I was now painting over
the room with brushstrokes of night. The threshold of my domain, the
thought came, forged of instinct and inhuman certainty. I bit my lip,
strong enough to draw blood.

Pain, that most human of sensations. It cleared out some of the ice and
I let out a relieved breath. I had to see to myself before the First
Prince graced me with her presence. That and play the card up my sleeve.

``I grant you leash,'' I said, voice echoing. ``I grant you eyes and
ears, tongue and feet, at my sufferance.''

With a throaty chuckle Akua Sahelian's shade stepped out of the Mantle
of Woe. Even in this half-death, she remained beautiful. High cheekbones
and perfectly styled eyebrows, her dress of red and gold tightly
clinging to curves I could only envy. The only thing marring that beauty
was the gaping bloody hole in her chest where I'd ripped out her heart.

``Freedom,'' the Diabolist mused. ``Limited, but then is that not true
of all freedoms?''

``Now that I've let you out of the lamp,'' I said, ``for the first of my
three wishes I would like peace for Calernia.''

She cast me a disapproving looks.

``You know very well that djinn do not grant wishes,'' she said. ``That
is mere Callowan ignorance.''

``You make a terrible genie, Akua,'' I told her. ``I'm going to trade
you for a lantern one of these days, you know? They're about as useful
and \emph{they} don't talk back.''

``Your insistence on levity is a mark of poor breeding, dearest,'' she
said. ``You must overcome it.''

I had a few less than polite things to reply to that with, including a
reminder that if she was so clever she wouldn't have ended up sown into
my collar, but it would have to wait. I could feel my guest arriving.
The darkness shivered, and just like that the First Prince sat across
from me. I'd not been sure that she'd bite when I sent Thief with the
amulet I'd woven strands of my domain into, but to my pleasure she had.
She was covered with so many miracles she almost glowed and she was very
careful never to leave her seat, but she was here anyway. Hasenbach was
not a reckless woman by nature, by my reckoning, but I knew exactly why
she'd taken the risk to venture into even the outskirts of my domain:
the Augur. How deeply that woman's visions ran was still a subject of
much speculation across the whole Empire, but I'd banked on her being
able to tell I genuinely had no intention of turning this into a trap. I
needed the First Prince too badly to ever consider taking her life, even
if it'd been possible. There was a moment of silence, as the Proceran
gathered her bearings. I said nothing, patiently waiting.

Her Most Serene Highness Cordelia Hasenbach, First Prince of Procer,
Prince of Rhenia and Princess of Salia, Warden of the West and Protector
of the Realms of Man. Quite a mouthful of titles for a woman who was
only twenty-six years old and had become the sovereign ruler of the
largest -- and arguably most powerful -- nation on Calernia before the
age of twenty. This was likely as close to meeting in person as we'd
ever come, so as always I took a moment to study her. She was impeccably
clothed in dark blue I'd been told was part of the heraldry of her home
principality Rhenia, the dress rather conservative but still flattering
to her frame. It made her shoulders look slimmer, I thought. Hasenbach
was best known for her skill as a diplomat, but she'd been born with a
warrior's frame. Her long golden hair cascaded down her neck in perfect
ringlets, needing no ornament but their own richness, but there was a
discreet touch of golden eye shadow that made her blue eyes stand out
even more vividly. On her brow was a circlet of white gold, tastefully
understated considering the power it represented. I'd seen beautiful
women in my day, some hauntingly so, and honestly would not count the
First Prince among them. She was not plain, not exactly, but all the
most striking parts of her appearance were careful artifice.

That did nothing to detract from her presence, even in this half-realm
of mine. Though seated on a mere cushioned and sculpted chair, she
radiated that\ldots{} something. The unspoken pull that surrounded
people like Black and Malicia, or even Juniper. That spark that made the
weight they bore into something that dragged others into their orbit.
No, she was not someone to ever underestimate. The more I learned about
her ascension to the throne and the years that had followed, the warier
I was becoming of her. The pit of vipers she ruled was as deadly as the
Imperial court in many ways, and she'd retained rule of it without
having a cudgel like Black to call on. She met my eyes, but did not
speak. Akua softly laughed, walking around the First Prince's silhouette
with the grace of a cat before leaning her head over the Proceran's
shoulder.

``She will never speak first, my heart,'' the shade of my most hated
enemy said. ``It would be improper, you see. Her people believe that
First Prince is the greatest of all titles, and so she must never be
first to offer courtesy.''

I inclined my head towards Hasenbach.

``Your Most Serene Highness,'' I said, voice calm.

``Your Grace,'' Cordelia Hasenbach replied.

The proper address was `Your Majesty', though never once had she
referred to me as such. The etiquette she employed recognized me as
noble, though at best one of equal standing with any of the many princes
of the Procer.

``Look at how her lip curls around the words, Catherine,'' Akua laughed,
moving around the unseeing First Prince to better study her. ``She would
prefer not to grant you them at all, but she must -- and \emph{how} it
displeases her. To call you queen would be recognition of your
legitimacy, and end to her crusade's own. But to deny you any title at
all would make any negotiation between you worthless.''

Akua rose, stretching languidly.

``And she needs you to keep speaking to her, my lovely,'' the monster
said silkily. ``Oh yes. Even should you never come to terms, to be able
to gauge you with her own eyes is priceless advantage.''

Diabolist had grown increasingly fond of using endearments with me,
since I'd ripped out her heart and stolen her soul. Fucking Praesi.
Fucking highborn, really.

``Let's begin with the usual,'' I said. ``Terms?''

``Unchanged,'' the First Prince replied. ``Immediate abdication and
disbanding of your armies. Your soldiery to undergo fair trial after the
crusade. Yourself and no more than five of your comrades allowed exile
without pursuit, under condition of never returning to Callow.''

I hummed, and idly reached for my pipe. I used the process of stuffing
it with wakeleaf and striking a match as a deferral of answer to allow
me to gather my thoughts. I'd half-expected Hasenbach to offer starker
terms now that she'd struck the first blow and begun crossing into
Callow catching me flat-footed.

``Do you feel that?'' Akua murmured. ``That is \emph{caution}, dearest.
She does not harden terms of surrender because she fears you. What you
might do if cornered. Use that fear, Catherine. It is the sharpest prick
of the mantle you claimed.''

I puffed at my pipe and let out a stream of smoke, making myself more
comfortable in my seat.

``I'll have to decline, for now,'' I said.

Akua was useful, too useful to shove back into the box right now, but
more for her perceptiveness than her advice. The terms remained
unacceptable. Abdication would be a relief, to be honest, and something
that was going to happen regardless if my plans came to fruition. But
not like this. I couldn't trust a crusader tribunal to pass sentence on
the Praesi under my command, much less the greenskins. And that the
First Prince and her allies would be deciding Callow's fate without a
single check on their decisions was the least acceptable part of it all.

``You are calmer than I expected,'' Hasenbach said. ``The dossiers we
have of you led me to expect conversation of a harsher tone.''

Akua clucked her tongue.

``Do not let her turn this towards you, my heart,'' she advised. ``Any
answer at all will be revealing in ways you cannot control. That is too
dangerous a woman to be given the lay of your thoughts.''

I inclined my head, agreeing with Akua while masquerading it as
acquiescence with the First Prince's sentence.

``I've been reading about the Principate, lately,'' I said. ``About how
it functions in practice.''

The First Prince smiled, as if she were sharing a drink with an old
friend.

``Interesting,'' she said. ``And have you come to any conclusions?''

``It doesn't,'' I bluntly said. ``Function, that is. The fault line in
Procer's foundation has been made exceedingly clear over the last twenty
years.''

Not so much as a speck of emotion crossed the First Prince's face. Akua
laughed delightedly.

``See how her brow stiffened, Catherine?'' she said. ``That is anger, my
lovely. The recognition that the Empress' game was no great plot. That
all her people ever needed to claw each other bloody was means and
excuse. Feed that wroth. That is the only way for you to glimpse truth
behind the mask.''

Praesi diplomacy, I was learning, was more like a pit fight with
slightly pulled punches than anything I'd recognize. It was all about
testing the other side, making them blink and then capitalizing on that
weakness. That Akua could not recognize tussling like that with Cordelia
godsdamned Hasenbach was a bad idea was a good reminder that for all her
cleverness the Diabolist had heavy blinders. That was the rotten heart
that always made the designs of the High Lords collapse: they could not
ever conceive that they were sometimes in the inferior bargaining
position. Fortunately, I'd learned that lesson early when I grew up with
the Tower's boot over my throat. \emph{No doubt I have blinders of my
own}, I thought. \emph{But if I knew they'd hardly be blinders, would
they?}

``Not overly surprising conclusion, given the manner in which you have
ruled,'' the First Prince said. ``For all that your throne is in Laure,
you have adopted many of the manners of the East.''

Ruled, I noted, not reigned. How carefully she always picked her words.

``Don't misunderstand me,'' I said. ``I'm not touting the Tower as an
alternative, or even how I've been running things. I just grafted Praesi
bureaucracy to the court, and it's a clunky solution. But I've gotten my
hands on a history of the League Wars, and it's not a pretty story.''

Akua clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

``This is the chorus of the losing side, dearest,'' she chided me.
``Beneath the dignity of one who triumphed over me.''

It was a small shift, but I saw Hasenbach's eyes brighten with interest
after I spoke. I'd been careful, during our little talks, to try to find
common grounds. Something we could discuss and disagree over without it
getting personal. So far, what had worked best was Proceran history. I
wasn't reading those books solely because I no longer needed to sleep,
or even to get an idea of my opponent's weaknesses.

``You refer to the Right of Iron,'' she said. ``I would, in fact, tend
to agree with you in this matter. The prerogative of waging war without
the agreement of the First Prince has been the source of much trouble
over the centuries.''

``So why haven't you tried to revoke it?'' I asked, genuinely curious.
``I know that'd have to go through the Highest Assembly and that means a
vote, but just after your civil war people were sick enough of the
killing you would have had a decent chance of pushing it through.''

``I considered this,'' the First Prince admitted. ``Yet in doing so, I
would have created cohesive opposition to any further reform. Many of
which are, as you have said, direly needed.''

``That opposition you're talking about,'' I said. ``They're the exact
same people that spent nearly twenty years ravaging the Principate on
Malicia's pay.''

``A generalization,'' Hasenbach said. ``One with some shade of accuracy,
I will concede, yet there is important difference in having been funded
by the Empress and having sought to do her bidding.''

I acknowledged the point with a nod. From the corner of my eye I saw
Akua meandering away from the First Prince, coming to stand at my back.
Even knowing she was powerless, utterly at my mercy, having her behind
me was raising the hair on my neck.

``What I'm wondering is -- why listen to them at all?'' I asked. ``I saw
the Imperial estimates for the remaining armies after the Battle of
Aisne. There wasn't a force in the Principate that could have stood
against you, if you'd twisted their arms into backing your reforms. And
I don't mean the small ones, I mean \emph{everything}.''

``You were taught,'' Cordelia Hasenbach said, ``by two of the most
brutal tyrants in living memory. That is not your fault, though your
embrace of their methods remains your sole responsibility. That is why
your perspective on the subject is tainted. I did not attempt to make
myself an absolute monarch because I believe such a manner of ruling to
be dangerously flawed.''

``If you count civil wars, Procer's been on the field more often than
any other nation on Calernia,'' I pointed. ``That includes \emph{Praes},
Your Highness.''

``You blame this on lack of centralized authority,'' the First Prince
said. ``That is not entirely inaccurate, yet you miss the central tenet
of the Principate: it is, unlike Praes, a nation built on consensus. The
Highest Assembly is prone to squabbles, and inefficient. This I will not
deny. That is because it is not an institution meant to empower the
office of the First Prince, it is meant to \emph{check} it. No single
man or woman should ever be able to wield the full, unrestricted might
of the Principate.''

``Now,'' Akua whispered into my ear. ``Now is when you slide the
knife.''

I smiled pleasantly.

``Then why,'' I asked, ``is the host crossing into Callow made up almost
entirely by your opposition in the Assembly?''

The shutters went down on the First Prince's face, even as I pulled at
my pipe and allowed smoke to stream out of my nostrils. \emph{This}, I
thought, \emph{moments like this. They're why I let you out of the box,
Akua.} I had much to learn from Diabolist, when it came to this kind of
game.

``She did not expect you to understand her intent,'' Akua said, still at
my side. ``Watch the eyes, how she reconsiders the kind of threat you
pose. She thought you a dull thug, a brute of a child with a stolen
crown. Now she wonders if you've taken as much from these talks as she
has, and it \emph{worries} her.''

The shade laughed.

``Do not talk,'' she said. ``Let her silence damn her more the longer it
stretches.''

I spat out another mouthful of smoke, studying the First Prince. When
she finally spoke, her tone was perfectly calm.

``I am forced to wonder,'' Hasenbach said, ``what game it is you truly
play, Catherine Foundling.''

``The only game I've ever ever played,'' I said. ``Keeping my people's
head above the waterline.''

``Yet you ally with monsters and murderers,'' the First Prince said.
``The very same whose fellows committed the single greatest massacre of
Callowans since the days of Dread Empress Triumphant.''

``May she never return,'' Akua murmured.

``I'm also talking with you,'' I said. ``The thing is, Your Highness,
that right now the Tower's my only possible bedfellow. I can't take your
crusade on my own.''

Not entirely true. Juniper was the opinion that if I was willing to let
most of Callow burn while I struck deep in crusader territory, I might
be able to force a draw by sheer dint of massacre. She'd played out the
theory with her general staff. No part of that path was acceptable to
me, though. I was not willing to pile up the bodies until no one was
able to keep going. If I was ever forced to that, well\ldots{} Better to
abdicate. And to backstab Praes as brutally as I could beforehand, so
that the crusade ended quickly and not in Callow.

``A villain ruling over Callow is not an acceptable outcome for this
war,'' the First Prince said.

``People I don't trust in the slightest deciding what happens to Callow
isn't either,'' I frankly replied. ``If I have to cut a deal, I'd rather
do it with you than Malicia. After Liesse\ldots{} Well, if this is the
best I can expect from the Empire, the Empire's not an entity I can
trust to uphold their part of a deal.''

``Trust has nothing do with it,'' Akua dismissed. ``You have power
enough that the Empress cannot cross you lightly. Treaties are only ever
gilding added to the deeper truth of power, dearest. This one does not
consider you of sufficient might to treat with.''

``Trust,'' Hasenbach said, her tone almost amused.

``Trust,'' I echoed.

The First Prince smiled.

``Did you never pause to wonder, Your Grace, why the only powers willing
to deal with you are monstrous?'' she asked softly.

My jaw clenched.

``Did you never wonder if you \emph{belong} amongst that number?''

My fingers tightened.

``Careful now,'' Diabolist warned. ``She goads you not by accident.''

The urge was there to lash out. To remind that sanctimonious fucking
Proceran that her own hands were far from clean. She'd sent out her
enemies for me to savage, and her reasons for starting this crusade
weren't nearly as squeaky clean as she'd like her allies to believe.
She'd played the shadow game with Malicia for over a decade, too, and
there's wasn't a person in Creation who'd manage to get through that
without some mud on their shoes. Why were her killings less a sin than
mine? Because she went to the House of Light for sermons and paid her
alms? Because her intentions were some kind of nebulous greater good?
Hells, so were mine. Instead I took a deep breath. Slowly, I raised my
pipe and pulled at the dragonbone shaft. The wakeleaf no longer brought
the sharp focus it once had, but the act itself was soothing.

``I have,'' I admitted quietly, ``utterly failed Callow.''

Whatever answer she'd expected, it had not been that. The flicker of
surprise in her eyes did not lie. I felt Akua begin to speak, but I no
longer had need of her services. All it took was an exertion of will and
back into the collar she went. Blind and deaf and furious.

``After First Liesse, when the Ruling Council was formed,'' I said.
``No, even before that. When I did not answer Akua Sahelian being named
governess with gathering an army and hanging her from the nearest tree.
I betrayed everything I had set out to do the moment I allowed a woman I
knew a cold butcher to be the steward of Callowan lives for the sake of
political expediency.''

I'd had months, now, of sleepless nights. Of going back over everything
I'd done. Thinking of the paths I could have taken that didn't result in
a hundred thousand of my people dead. And there had been so very many of
them, hadn't there?

``I fucked up the Ruling Council,'' I acknowledged. ``I had the leverage
to make real changes, the same kind I've been saying I want to achieve
since I was a girl, and instead I let a council stacked with High Lord
cronies run Callow for me. And then got furious when they acted the same
way Praesi always have, the moment I wasn't there to make them afraid.
I've been complicit through inaction or ignorance in every catastrophe
that struck Callow since the moment I got power and did absolutely
nothing with it.''

The First Prince watched me in silence, her face unreadable.

``I could make excuses,'' I said. ``That I was ill-prepared for that
kind of authority. That I spent so much time and spilled so much blood
getting on top I forgot \emph{why} I wanted to be there in the first
place. But that'd be hypocritical, wouldn't it? I was given exactly what
I clamoured for, and when I got it a city was turned into a graveyard.
Hells, it's on my fucking standard: justifications matter only to the
just. I started out with the intention of burying anyone who tossed
around sentences like that in a shallow grave, but now I'm the one
having them sown on battle flags. Second Liesse made it clear that I've
slowly crawled into being the kind of person I swore I was going to
remove.''

``And yet,'' Cordelia Hasenbach said, ``you still wear the crown and
muster your armies for war. Sentiment is only meaningful if followed by
action. If your grief at all the woe you have caused changes nothing, it
is merely self-pity.''

``I know exactly what I have to do, Hasenbach,'' I said. ``And letting
you carve up Callow like side of pork isn't part of it. Not when the
people doing the carving have no real incentive to care for the realm
under the knife.''

``Self-pity, then,'' Hasenbach said. ``You still believe you can win
this war.''

``War,'' I said, ``is the very opposite of what I'm after.''

My pipe had finally gone out, I saw.

``We'll talk again,'' I told her, and the darkness collapsed.

I stayed in my seat for a long time, alone with my thoughts. \emph{When
does a lesser evil simply become an evil?} That was the line I needed to
find, the one that could not be crossed. The moment where I became a
greater wound than the one I was trying to prevent. I rose as the ice
receded around me. It was going to be a long night.

They always were.
