\hypertarget{chapter-29-retrospect}{%
\section{Chapter 29: Retrospect}\label{chapter-29-retrospect}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``My son, the Helikeans insist it is better to live a day as a
lion than a hundred years as a sheep but as in so many things they are
missing the point. Lions commonly live a decade and a half, sheep
slightly less. It is not them you must emulate but instead the common
tortoise, a wise creature that achieves very little but will do so for a
very long time. This is the ideal state of politics.''}

-- Extract from the infamous `Sensible Testament' of Basilea Chrysanthe
of Nicae
\end{quote}

We got three days' march before Creation turned on us.

It was always going to, I'd known that deep down -- there'd been too
many moving parts sent to spin within the bounds of Iserre for my armies
to be allowed to escape the grounds so easily. But I'd expected, and
planned for, the Heavens putting their fingers to the scale through the
local crop of heroes. My contingencies had been built to kill or cripple
enemy Named, killing as few actual soldiers as was possible. If there
was to be a confrontation, my thought had been, best it be contained to
Named and army strength on all sides be preserved. Given that we now
outnumbered the western coalition army by a fair margin, that shouldn't
have been too difficult. The enemy fielded less than eighty thousand on
their side, though they had us almost hilariously outnumbered in all
matters cavalry. In comparison my own coalition had taken beatings but
overall no dramatic losses, and that left us on rather healthy grounds:
a little over twenty thousand veterans from the Legions of Terror,
around thirty seven thousand legionaries of the Army of Callow and my
largely intact fifty thousand drow. One hundred thousand and ten in
total, more or less, so we had the enemy not only beaten in numbers but
arguably in quality of soldiery as well.

It'd been the assessment of the Marshals that the enemy was unlikely to
seek a pitched battle, and I'd concurred. It wasn't that it'd be
impossible for the enemy to win, should they attack. If they hit us
during the hours after dawn we'd be down most the drow and they'd regain
temporary superiority in numbers, which might allow them to swing this
around if they bled us bad enough before the Firstborn were back on
their feet. It was that the costs of such a victory would be horrific,
to put it bluntly. Losses would be massive on both sides, and with
Princess Rozala having a seat in those war councils there'd be at least
one voice to remind them that if I felt my people were being forced into
a corner the gloves would come off. Whether or not we were correct in
guessing the enemy's thoughts, their actions at least were correctly
predicted: as the eastern coalition began a march to the northeast, out
of Iserre and towards Cantal, the western coalition shadowed our advance
but did not engage. Not even in skirmishes, to my mild surprise. I'd
expected cavalry raids and Levantine light foot to try out screening
forces, but the enemy made a point of never engaging in bloodshed.

Some of our soldiers considered this a good sign, and talk in the camps
was that we might just walk back to Callow without drawing swords.
Juniper had been scornful of the rumours, and passed down instructions
to stamp them out, but myself I'd been rather impressed there were still
any optimists left in my armies. You'd think they would have gotten
themselves killed by now, just by dint of odds. Regardless, my own
expectations remained dark and so when the first sign of trouble arrived
I was validated instead of disappointing. It was on the fourth morning,
about an hour before the Firstborn would be able to shake off dawn
torpor, that a chunk of Creation half a mile wide shattered like glass
in front of my armies.

``That,'' Vivienne slowly said, ``looks like a gate.''

It did, I thought, and that was not good news. The two of us had been
riding to the Third Army's camp, when Creations began creaking, so it
was only a short ride to General Abigail's command to order a runner
being sent for `Advisor Kivule'. I half expected a comment from Vivienne
at that, but found her face to be largely indifferent. She caught me
looking, though, and raised an eyebrow.

``I'm not a fool, Catherine,'' she said. ``In Masego's absence, she's
the finest magical expert we have. It would be wasteful not to make use
of her.''

``Haven't said a thing,'' I replied, raising a hand in protest.

I declined the escort the Third Army offered, as well as the offer to
accompany me that General Abigail offered while poorly hiding a cringe.
She hid her relief at my refusal just as poorly, to Vivienne's subtle
amusement. We rode together towards the break and all the while she was
suppressing a smile.

``That one's in no danger of being tempted into reckless adventures, at
least,'' Vivienne finally drawled.

``I find the lack of ambition refreshing,'' I admitted. ``The boldest
step she's taken so far is discreetly inquiring if service months under
a field promotion still count towards earning a general's retirement
pension.''

The other Callowan choked, swallowing her laughter.

``Well?'' she asked, tone hoarse with suppressed hilarity. ``Does it,
Your Majesty?''

``Figured I'd throw her a bone,'' I mused. ``It's not like she's getting
a general's salary at the moment anyway.''

We might have continued quite a while in that vein if the approach of
the breach hadn't killed any semblance of amusement. We'd ridden close
enough that I could make out what laid behind the filmy, gauze-like
surface of the breach: a barren wasteland of howling dust storms I'd
visited before. Frowning, I noted that the opening seemed to lead to a
place different than the one I'd stood at. The great whirlwinds with
streaks of lightning and the earth cracking open into geysers of flame
were miles and miles away.

``\emph{Shit},'' I feelingly said. ``This is happening a lot quicker
than I thought it would.''

Vivienne rode closer, as her sight was not as good as mine, and had
grown pale by the time I caught up with her. I almost turned to
acknowledge what I felt arriving behind me, but the breach itself was
currently of greater interest,

``You told us it was slowly coming into alignment with Creation,'' the
dark-haired woman said. ``That it might take months.''

``That's what Sve Noc told me,'' I told her. ``And I had no reason to
believe they were wrong.''

``They were not,'' Advisor Kivule said.

Her presence in the Night meant her arrival was no surprise to me, but I
was pleased to note that Vivienne either had grown better at hiding her
surprise or she'd also somehow noticed. `Advisor Kivule' was dressed
entirely in black, her closely cut dress covering going from the hollow
of her throat to her boots, and neither her face nor her hair were
visible under the elaborate veils and half-hat she wore. That I had
bound Akua Sahelian to my cloak after Second Liesse was rumoured, but
there might be unrest if it came out I was not allowing her to walk
about without chains. The false name and attire wouldn't fool anyone
already suspecting her identity, but given the kind of entities I'd
bound to my service in the past Vivienne had assured me that the most
popular rumours had nothing to do with Diabolist. Apparently she was
either a drow sorceress I'd stolen from underground -- never mind that
they'd seen actual Firstborn and that as a species they distinctly
lacked curves -- or a fae I'd seduced into making oaths to me. The
slightly uncomfortable way Vivienne had spoken the word `seduced' made
it clear what kind of seduction was being referred to, which was
actually rather flattering -- it did imply, after all, that I was
skilled enough in bed to bedazzle one of the fae.

``Cryptic,'' Vivienne commented. ``If you'd care to elaborate?''

``The unpleasant vista that can be seen on the other side is not aligned
with Creation,'' Akua replied. ``In this, Sve Noc were entirely correct
in assessing the time. Though I cannot be certain as to what caused this
phenomenon, I can hazard an informed guess.''

``Which is?'' I asked.

``You described High Arcana runes and a detonation taking place while
you visited, Catherine,'' the shade said. ``Repeated impacts of that
nature might reverberate across the boundary between Arcadia and
Creation, creating temporary breaches.''

``So whoever-'' Masego, most likely ``-is behind the mess on the other
side, they're swing hard enough at the wall between us and them that
tiles are shattering,'' I frowned.

``A more accurate metaphor would be a sword striking at a pond,'' Akua
suggested. ``The initial strike will leave a mark, in this case being
the breach you see before us, before creational laws make the water
return where force chase it from -- in this case, the boundary pressure
eventually closing this breach.''

``At least there's not a permanent gate into Arcadia in the middle of
Procer,'' Vivienne said. ``Somehow I doubt Hasenbach would be too
pleased about that.''

``Wasn't us,'' I replied out of reflex. ``And if it was you can't prove
it, so in a philosophical sense it isn't.''

There was a moment of embarrassed silence as the other two women looked
at me. I grimaced.

``Well,'' I spoke into the quiet, a tad defensive. ``Given our history,
I might as well start practicing the official response early.''

``Inadequate,'' Akua said.

``Sloppy,'' Vivienne said, almost simultaneously.

They didn't turn to glare at each other, though given how much of a
point they were making of not doing that they might as well have for all
the difference it made. The irritation from Vivi was likely genuine, but
rubies to piglets that Akua was just having fun yanking her chain. It
would be a much greater challenge, I thought, to wean her off pettiness
than it would be to wean her off of Evil. Who could say I'd not learned
to pick my battles?

``Glad we're all in agreement,'' I drily said. ``I need practical
details here, o advisor. When's this thing going to disappear? Can we
expect others to appear, and if so how often?''

``Less than a bell,'' the shade replied, which had me sighing.

Four hours, in the winter season, was no small portion of the daylight
hours already shortened by the forced slumber of the Firstborn after
dawn. We'd have to march around the damned thing.

``As for your second question, there are two possibilities,'' Akua said.
``The first is that we are looking at the initial breach, in which case
we might have days before a second instance -- though the occurrences
will quicken as the process advances.''

``And the second?'' I asked, bracing myself.

``This is not the first breach,'' Akua said. ``And they have simply been
occurring in different parts of Iserre, for an unknown amount of time.
We could be looking at hours instead of days for the apparition rate.''

``Diabolist,'' Vivienne said. ``What happens when the rate is so close
as to be instantaneous?''

``In metaphysical terms, a repurposed chunk of Arcadia will made into a
half-realm straddling the boundary between it and Creation,'' the shade
said.

``And in physical terms?'' I asked.

``I don't believe this has ever been accomplished before,'' Akua
Sahelian cheerfully admitted. ``And so I've no authoritative answer to
give, darling dearest. It ought to be interesting to find out whether we
are simply to be obliterated by the initial bridging or the process will
closer to the forging of a permanent domain with tendrils reaching in
both realms.''

Certain death or probably death, then. There was a cheery thought. I
closed my eyes, let all I'd learned sink in. I'd come across more than a
dozen moving parts since I'd walked out the gate bringing me to Iserre,
but this was it -- the pivot, the fulcrum, the culmination of all this
bloody mayhem. Had the Tyrant planned this far? No, I decided. No one
was that good, not even the Neshamah, and for all his brilliance Kairos
Theodosian was no King of Death. Now, in matters of war and politics I
could grasp how we had come to this cliff's edge. The Grand Alliance
could not and would not yield, neither could I and all the while violent
madmen rode the carriage that was the League of Free Cities down ever
slope they could find. But what was the \emph{story} here? There was
one, of that there could be no doubt. There were too many Named in
Iserre, too many crowns and too many secrets for there not to be a tale
in the works. If it were merely the western and eastern coalitions
clashing, we would have the heroic and the villainous and the usual
tragedies in black and white.

The League's presence muddled that, however. It was no longer so
clear-cut, and after the unfolding calamity in Arcadia was brought into
the mix the waters became even muddier. \emph{Kairos wants to play a
trick}, I thought. \emph{I want to forge a peace and wield it like a
blade.} I could only guess at Masego's intent, but he could not be in
his right mind. That would make him, I thought, a danger or an obstacle.
The sword hanging above all our heads but not someone who would
influence the shape beyond that. Now, I knew what Princess Rozala wanted
but she wasn't the champion for her side was she? It was the Grey
Pilgrim that would bear that mantle and I wasn't really sure what the
old man wanted. He should have killed Black, I thought. It would have
made more sense to do that if peace was what he was after. I would have
been utterly furious, true enough, but if they'd killed him while he was
in the middle of burning Procer I would have had to swallow my anger.
Instead he'd given me reason to\ldots{} \emph{To twist arms so that I
could get him back,} I thought, and my blood cooled. I'd heard rumours
about Black being dead or captured even in hamlets, it was a given that
the moment I came to Iserre I'd hear about it.

So when I'd first encountered the Pilgrim and the Saint, I'd baited her
and tricked him to go after something he'd known for certain I would
want. And I'd won a victory. Oh, it hadn't been given to me, but
narratively speaking I'd received a written invitation to take it.
\emph{And I won from it the body without the soul, the part that
actually makes Black dangerous to them.} It'd been bait, and I'd taken
it. A victory, I thought once more. Could it actually be that simple? I
wasn't Named, not anymore, but I was the high priestess of Night and the
weight of the roles I still played might be enough. And there had been
growing similarities, hadn't there? I'd slipped into them without even
noticing. I now bore a staff and no sword, I called on miracles to aid
and protect rather than attack. I had godlings whispering in my ears,
companions at my side. I was eldest in influence among the priesthood
and Named of a coalition of nations, and an unequaled religious figure
in one of them. I had made myself and been made into the
patchwork-cloaked opposite of the pilgrim in grey, one step at a time.
And now I'd claimed a win over one that might be called my rival. This,
I thought, felt like a pattern of three. One I had initiated as a
villain, and with a victory.

I knew well what followed: draw and then finally defeat.

Now, if I were the Grey Pilgrim, why would I go this far out of my way
to kill Catherine Foundling? Because the Choir of Mercy told me to, I
immediately thought but just as quickly dismissed. If Tariq were simply
a murderous errand boy for the Ophanim he'd be a great deal less
dangerous. No, if he was doing this and had invested so much time into
doing it when the Dead King was devouring the north then it was for a
reason -- not necessarily one I'd considered good or decent, but one
that would seem those to him. My eyes blinked open and I found my
companions both staring at me in silence.

``I am the Grey Pilgrim,'' I said. ``Why, of all the threats currently
on the board, do I need to have a story-forged knife either at or in the
Black Queen's throat?''

``The fairy gates,'' Vivienne replied, cocking her head to the side.
``They can either make or break the war to the north. The ability needs
to be either solidly secured or removed so it can't be a threat.''

Which made sense, I thought, if I grasped the timing of it correctly.
Black had been captured while I was in the Everdark, which meant the
Dead King had either been mustering his armies or already on the march.
The Pilgrim ended a strategic offensive that had a real risk of starving
half the Principate into collapse if left unchecked while simultaneously
acquiring leverage on both Malicia and myself. Snip with the soul and
not only did he keep that leverage but he prepared a pattern of three.
The degree of foresight that'd require was frightening, to be honest,
and I suspected beyond even a hero in bed with a Choir. On the other
hand, I wouldn't put it beyond the Grey Pilgrim to do all this as a
\emph{contingency}. Ending a threat while expanding the tools at his
disposal? Yeah, that might fit. He'd know he was exposing himself to my
tearing through a gate and appearing behind him at some point down the
line -- rescuing my teacher would have quite the weight behind it -- but
cutting out the soul would muddle up that story and I suspected he could
do quite a bit with the ability to predict where I'd appear when coming
for the soul. Was that really all it was, though? The gates had simply
made me too potentially dangerous \emph{not} to pull a knife on?
Considering the man had looked into my soul a few times, he must have
known that I'd rather avoid war if I could. I glanced at Diabolist,
whose gaze remained hidden behind her veils.

``Because it is the only certain way of killing you,'' the shade calmly
said, ``and Calernia cannot survive a second Dead King.''

I opened my mouth, then closed it. It seemed an absurd claim, for all
the talk of apotheosis that had preceded my descent into the Everdark.
Yet I trusted Akua's intellect, if less so her judgement. She wouldn't
have said that without careful consideration. I thought back to my
fights with the heroes, when the Tenth Crusade had come knocking. I'd
dropped a lake on the enemy, to be sure, but it wasn't worse than what
the likes of the Warlock and possibly the Witch of the Wilds could have
done with a little preparation. Although, arguably the lack of
preparation needed on my part made it -- no, this was all missing the
point. Feasible way of \emph{killing} me, Akua had said. That brought
different perspective. Sure, I'd been repeatedly slapped around by the
Saint of Swords and she'd shrugged off the worst of what Winter could
bring to bear, but I'd usually accomplished what I came for while going
around her before retreating. The Pilgrim himself had seen me tear
through a band of heroes while fumbling with the barest fraction of my
mantle had been able to do. If I'd known half the tricks at the Battle
of the Camps that I'd known in the Everdark, I honestly doubted anyone
but the Pilgrim or the Saint would have been able to put a scratch on
me. And those two, I realized, were the oldest and perhaps most powerful
heroes on the continent.

Shit.

The thought that the man could have conceived of me as a nascent Dead
King was ludicrous, he'd been able to see into my fucking \emph{soul}. I
wasn't\ldots{} Gods, I'd done some dark things and not always for
reasons as good as I would have wished but there were lines I'd always
refused to cross. That I would have kept to. \emph{This can't be
personal}, I told myself, and put aside the horrifying thought that a
truth teller might have genuinely believed I had the potential to become
the likes of Neshamah. Stepping out of myself, I looked at the story of
Catherine Foundling through the Grey Pilgrim's eyes. The past was
largely irrelevant, I decided, save perhaps for a note that I'd been
taught by the Black Knight and would likely draw on his manners and
methods. What mattered was that I'd come into a Name as the
manifestation of what Tariq had called \emph{the sin of our indolence
returned to haunt us}, the first time we'd ever spoken. That was
important, that informed what I considered the Black Queen to be. She
was a form of retribution by Creation, by the story, for a failure on
the side of Good. Catherine Foundling, as an entity, was inherently
dangerous to the Heavens. Still, as the Pilgrim I didn't like killing
unless the situation required it and I did not yet know if it did. I
should, at least, meet with this Black Queen.

What did I find when I did? Offers of truce, offers to reduce the
dangers for everyone, but also a mutilated soul. And Winter encroaching
on the remnants, essentially a standing temptation by a power older than
Creation and by nature prone to contaminating mortal minds. I make the
reasonable offer of this very dangerous person abdicating the crown and
allowing others settle the kingdom she's slowly turning to Evil by
simple virtue of ruling it, but mortal considerations prevent her from
accepting. This is a good sign, because it means she still has good
intentions. This is a bad sign, because her attachment to Callow is the
kind of narrative leverage Below will use in a heartbeat to make a full
monster of her. So I make a bargain about keeping the damage under
control with the Black Queen, hoping that after a clean military defeat
she'll be forced to reconsider the earlier offer. On the other hand, we
have to be \emph{very careful} not to push her so far she'll sink into
Winter and become the kind of mess that gobbles up armies before it's
put down. It's a delicate dance, but I've been at this game for a very
long time and I have the Saint of Swords as a contingency. Then the
Battle of the Camps happens.

A full band of heroes fails to kill the Black Queen, then the Saint
fails after them, and the gate trick kills a few thousand people in less
time than it takes to drink a cup of tea. Then the backlash makes her
fall into some sort of state -- Diabolist taking the reins of the body,
though I might not know that -- and she faces down the entire heroic
contingent simultaneously before snapping out of the fugue state and
forcing a truce on the battlefield. Catherine Foundling has now proved
dangerous, exceedingly hard to kill and mentally unstable. Given that
she's running around with an entire fairy court's worth of power, good
intentions or not she needs to be removed. The peace conference achieves
that, more or less: the terms ensure I'll be around her, able to find a
weakness or guide her into a redemption story that'll either kill her or
turn her to good purpose in the service of the Heavens. The Tenth
Crusade is repulsed in the Vales as well, but that's all right because
the Black Queen is the key to settling Callow and she hasn't gone
anywhere. But then the Iron Prince along my native Levant prepare for a
second invasion through the Vales, and she comes seeking help. This is a
very, very dangerous moment. If I do not help her, I've thrown away the
story the deaths at the Battle of the Camps bought me. If I do help her,
on the other hand, I might be destroying the same Grand Alliance that
will be the same power bloc necessary to put her down if she gets out of
control.

Cordelia Hasenbach's dream ensures peace in the west, forced restoration
of Callow to Good and a unified front against the long-term term Evil
threats I've spent my entire life fighting. Catherine Foundling is a
young villain-trained queen with expansionist neighbours and access to
power that dehumanizes her the more she uses it -- the story of that
descent into atrocity practically writes itself. The choice is only hard
to make in the sentimental sense, and I've been doing this too long to
allow sentimentality much of a weight. Only, after that, instead of
running back to Praes or making Callow into some kind of nation-fortress
while I discretely look for an acceptable successor, she \emph{leaves}.
I don't know where she's going, but there's nowhere that's not a
disaster. Keter, to the Dead King? Arcadia, where she can bargain with
fae? To the Everdark, where not even the Ophanim can easily look? If she
went to the Tyrant of Helike that might be a relief, but months pass and
she doesn't appear in the League. This is a problem, because a
half-taught girl with that mantle is one thing but whatever the fae or
the Dead King might make of her is a \emph{very} different sort of
trouble. Then Keter begins invading the north, and the game changes: no
oath I took means a thing when the survival of Calernia might be at
stake. So I leave, and set to shaping a story that allows me to put her
down by any means necessary should she return as a true villainous Queen
of Winter.

I breathed out, and it was almost jarring to think of me as myself
again. The plunge had been deep and exhausting, but it'd also been
necessary. Both Vivienne and Akua had been right, in their own way.
Whether I came back as a monster or remained the same, the Pilgrim
benefitted from having a story-wrought knife at my throat. If I was to
be the Grand Alliance's gate-maker, I could either be bargained with
nicely or with the reminder that a promised victory might kill me. If I
was the\ldots{} Queen of Moonless Night, for lack of a better name, he
needed to kill me and \emph{fast} or it might mean the end of the
western nations. The thing was, stepping out of myself, I could finally
see why he'd consider me that much of a threat. Because I did have the
\emph{means}, didn't I?

To tread the same path as Dread Empress Triumphant.

It wouldn't even be all that hard because the pieces were all already
there, waiting to be picked up. Already I had Callowans in legionary
armour and the a knightly order under my banner. The Duchess of Daoine
had sworn oaths to me, and service of her armies, and from the Empire I
had already stolen three legions and come to Iserre claiming more. And I
could do a great deal more than that: bringing Black into the ranks of
the Mighty would forge me a monster of a general who finally had the
power to match his wits. I lacked mages, so while Procer bled to hold
back the dead I could force the submission of the already-fracturing
Praes and bring the finest sorcerers and warlocks of the continent into
my forces. Malicia could kneel or be buried with the Tower, and once the
rest of the east was unified the goblins would make a deal and the orcs
would fall into that nascent empire naturally -- I'd have Hakram, Black,
and Grem One-Eye in my service, how could they not? And then we could
turn west and take the gloves off. I had Hierophant and the ruins of the
fortress-artefact of Liesse. I had the Wild Hunt and ties with the
ruling court of Arcadia, I had the high priesthood of Night and alliance
with Sve Noc themselves. Oh, he was right to be afraid I thought.

If every other choice was taken from me, it might still come to that.

``I came back,'' I mused as I looked up at the sky, ``reeking of
millennial ritual murder and fresh apotheosis, with slivers of living
godhood perched on my shoulders and a sworn army of drow. I've
effectively confirmed his every fear.''

``He will come for you,'' Akua said. ``I expect that to a man like him
there is not a single act that would be immoral when taken in the
prevention of a second Dead King's rise.''

She was, I grimly thought, probably right.

``So we reach out,'' Vivienne said. ``Make it clear that you are no such
thing and offer reassurances.''

``He'll still want a draw for the pattern of three,'' I grimaced. ``Just
in case.''

``So what do we do?'' she asked. ``Because this isn't looking good,
Catherine. If what I've heard about how he caught the Black Knight is
true, he's not a man we want to make desperate.''

I clenched my fingers and unclenched them, looking at the gate.
\emph{Kairos wants to play a trick. I want to forge a peace and wield it
like a blade. Tariq wants to make sure no one can end the world, or at
least our little corner of it.} They key would be beyond the gate, I
decided. Where I already suspected the armies of the League would be
marching through, and perhaps even the other Grand Alliance army as
well.

``Now I know what everyone wants,'' I said. ``So I just need to figure
out how to win without making everyone else lose.''
