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\epigraph{``And so Maleficent the Second said: `If I must burn half the
realm to save the rest, then kneel before the empress of ashes.'\,''}{Extract from the Scroll of Restoration, fortieth of the Secret
Histories of Praes}



The Vogue Archive did not sleep and tonight neither could Cordelia
Hasenbach.

Numbly, she walked down the mostly empty hall past the great tables
bearing maps of the realm she ruled and the smaller bureaus -- where, at
hours other than the middle of the night, some of the finest minds in
Procer tended to its regions. There were a few mages of the Order of the
Red Lion tucked away in corners, having retreated after greeting her and
now again simply waiting to be of use, but aside from them the
oft-crowded hall was quiet. Fewer than a dozen men and women were within
it, sometimes reading through the odd reports that had come in the night
but more often tidying up the numerous scrolls and reports that'd poured
in during the day.

Cordelia made for the back of the hall, the raised dais where her
handpicked analysts were charged with sifting through a sea of ink and
parchment so that they might find the catastrophes on the Principate's
horizon in time for them to be averted. The First Prince had chosen five
such individuals, but at this hour there was only one awake and present:
a woman of an age difficult to parse, rather dowdy in appearance and of
generally unremarkable looks. The sole eye-catching part of the
Forgetful Librarian's appearance was her oddly beautiful eyelashes, as
if they had been borrowed from a more striking woman and set on this
one's face.

She looked, Cordelia had come to realize, rather like the manifest ideal
of someone's reclusive, scholarly aunt. It was an appearance that would
invite dismissal from many, hiding the sharp mind and utter lack of
morals of the Damned. The Librarian was an exceptionally talented woman
as both a scholar and an advisor, the First Prince had learned, but she
was best used as part of a larger council that would temper the ruthless
pragmatism of the solutions she tended to propose. The other woman did
not rise as Cordelia approached, remaining engrossed in a book as she
cradled a steaming cup of chamomile.

It was a small slight the Damned liked to give, one of the little games
she seemed unable to stop herself from playing even when there was no
conceivable benefit for her to gain, but it had remained an irritant.
Usually the First Prince took the time to consider whether a threshold
had been reached where the other Proceran needed to be reminded of the
hierarchy between them, but not tonight. The disrespect slid off her
like water off a duck's back. It seemed such a small, petty thing to eve
spare thought for after the news she had received.

The First Prince of Procer instead slid into one of the seats she'd had
brought here, exemplars of comfort given the long hours they would be
used for, and leaned back. She closed her eyes, wondering if the Heavens
would take pity on her and let her fall asleep instead of remaining
like\ldots{} this. Numb and exhausted, feeling as if she was somehow too
tired to sleep. There was a muted clap as the Forgetful Librarian closed
her book -- though not before placing a bookmark, the parts of Cordelia
that never rested noted, which was interesting given that most Chosen
and Damned seemed to have enhanced memory -- and set it down, sipping
with uncouth loudness at her chamomile.

The Librarian was Alamans and of good birth, meaning she was being
unpleasant very much on purpose.

``Long night?'' the Damned idly asked.

Cordelia did not answer for a very long time, yet she did not hear the
book creak open.

``I have been told,'' the First Prince finally said, ``that no less than
three Hellgates were opened across the breadth of Procer.''

And that was not why she grieved, for sorrow was a nation's due but
grief could only ever be personal, but it was an answer of enough
gravity that it would obscure what was truly moving her. The Forgetful
Librarian breathed in sharply but did not answer. Cordelia opened her
eyes, finding herself being closely studied.

``All three were temporarily sealed,'' she continued, ``though at the
cost of the lives of every Gigantes that came to our aid.''

The villainess hesitated, for though she was not a moral woman neither
was she the manner of monster that bargained with devils for the lives
of thousands.

``And Keter's Due?'' the Librarian asked.

In proper Proceran scholarship the phenomenon was known instead as `the
desolation', but since the Arsenal had begun to train wizards the Praesi
terminology had seeped through. It could not be denied that Proceran
sorcery had a rather religious turn to it, and as Cordelia understood it
the `desolation' was considered to be as much theological in nature as
it was magical -- a punishment by Above for the ruinous overreach of
mortals. \emph{What disgusting idea}, the Lycaonese thought. To punish
thousands for the crimes of one, who would not even be moved by the
sight of such cruelty regardless. The very definition of pointless
suffering. No, Cordelia would take no issue with the use of `Keter's
Due' at all.

``There are reports from both the Hierophant and the Grave Binder that
suggest the effects of the Due were purposefully worsened,'' the First
Prince evenly said. ``In each case, most of the surrounding region was
blighted.''

The curse had flooded outwards. To the north the losses were acceptable,
for Twilight's Pass had already been bare rock while the swaths of
western Hannoven and southern Rhenia that had been lost had been poor
farmlands. In the case of Hainaut, where the blight was said to have
spread down to a natural fortress named Lauzon's Hollow, the loss was
one still to be felt: those lands had been in the hands of Keter for
most of the war. In Cleves, however? The Hellgate had been opened at the
fortress of Trifelin, where Rozala Malanza had won a great battle mere
weeks before, and the Due slain a few thousand soldiers out in the open
where there had been too few wards. That had been the least of the
losses there in truth.

The blight had also swallowed most of the fine lands along the length
candle road, snuffing out the principality's breadbasket.

That meant that Cleves would have to be fed by southern principalities,
which where already buckling under the strain and rebellious besides. It
meant dozens of thousand of refugees forced to flee south into lands
grown increasingly hostile to them. It means that Procer would have to
either beg for parts of the harvest of the Kingdom of Callow which it
could not afford to buy -- not with Merchant Prince Mauricius having
clearly laid out there would be no more loans until some unacceptable
conditions were met -- or there would be starvation in the heartlands of
the Principate. Hannoven was ash and ruin, ruled by the dead. Of her own
Rhenia no lands save the city-fortress itself remained, her own people
huddling in the dark beyond those impassable defences while death roamed
the countryside. Now Cleves and Hainaut as well were a ruin.

The armies that had been supposed to turn the war around, to push the
dead back into the lakes, had delivered instead one of the bloodiest
stalemates in the history of Calernia. And Cordelia's own uncle had died
in some ill-fated last charge without the break between them ever having
been mended, nothing but harsh words left to part on. She forced herself
to breathe slowly and steadily, else she knew she would tear up. There
were too many people looking. There were \emph{always} too many people
looking, and she could not afford to show weakness after having forced
the hands of the Highest Assembly the way she had.

``Was Hainaut a defeat, then?'' the Librarian quietly asked.

Cordelia Hasenbach allowed herself a bitter smile.

``The Black Queen won the field, though the field was but a smoking ruin
and many died,'' the First Prince replied. ``Among them the Grey
Pilgrim. The White Knight broke the Dead King's great bridge in the
north, so the campaign can still be settled in our favour.''

She knew better than to name such an outcome a victory, however. Nearly
half the Army of Callow was gone, the Lycaonese forces on the front
mauled and leaderless and general casualties had been atrocious for
everyone save the Levantines. Who had not been spared, either, though in
a different way. The Dominion was in uproar, as at least a few hundred
of its Blood had died turning to ash without warning on the evening of
the Battle of Hainaut. Cordelia's spies believed that everyone who could
have a feasible claim to being an Isbili had died, around the time the
Peregrine himself had died and brought down the pilgrim's star on
Hainaut.

With the Holy Seljun dead, no legitimate successor in sight and all
remaining major nobles up north fighting Keter the resulting chaos
already promised to be crippling. Another nail in the Principate's
overly burdened coffin, she thought, for the Dominion had been one of
the last few nations with which Procer could trade to keep afloat: the
coming tide of squabbles and `honour wars' would strangle those routes
soon enough.

``Trouble in Levant,'' the Forgetful Librarian frowned, tracing the rim
of her cup with a finger. ``I'm not so sure we can afford that --
economically speaking, anyway. We will have to lean on Helike and her
dependents to compensate.''

``It will not be enough,'' Cordelia tiredly replied.

General Basilia, who was now quite openly mulling claiming the title of
empress after having so long deferred taking up the queenship of Helike,
had made great strides forward with precious little outside help.
Cordelia herself had served mostly as a diplomatic broker in the matter
of settling hostilities with Stygia, and now that Basilia had most of
the western Free Cities under her and a sworn peace with Atalante her
rise seemed difficult to stop. Luck was even on her size, as word was
that Bellerophon had once more declared war on Penthes, belatedly
seizing an opportunity to attack their old rival that the People had
failed to recognize. It further tipped the balance in General Basilia's
favour, though given the fluidity of wars in the League there was no
certain outcome. Not that Cordelia expected the war to continue much
longer.

Delos was too great a fortress to easily fall, but it would not stand
alone against three cities and the priests of Atalante had no yearning
to break a holy oath freshly sworn. It might not be that Basilia would
hold all of the Free Cities, as the Republic of Bellerophon at least
would fight to the death over submission, but it seemed likely that a
tributary empire centred on Helike would be emerging from the aftermath
of that war. Given that Basilia was friendly to the Grand Alliance and
hostile to the Tower as well as eager for trade to resume, this seemed
like a saving grace for Procer's ailing coffers. Except, of course, that
General Basilia had spent two years ravaging the Free Cities with her
wars.

Trading with a broken land not yet recovered from the last civil war
that'd ravaged it was not going to be sufficiently profitable in the
immediate future, not when the only Free City whose coffers had swelled
was Mercantis and it was hoarding the wealth. In a year, perhaps two,
this could be the miracle that Cordelia needed should the nascent empire
of Basilia not collapse.

The Principate of Procer did not have a year to spare, much less two.

``Shall I send for the others, then?'' the Forgetful Librarian asked.
``If there was ever a reason to wake them in the night, this would be
it. I have refined my proposal for the invasion of Mercantis as a
stopgap solution, besides, so it might be the time for Your Highness to
genuinely consider it.''

She still believed, it seemed, that there was room to maneuver. That
there was still a game afoot.

``One year and twenty-eight days,'' Cordelia Hasenbach softly said.
``That is how long we have before the seals on the Hellgates break.''

And what could be done in so little time? Queen Catherine had left one
of her foremost generals, Abigail the Fox, to handle matters in Hainaut
with the returning White Knight and bluntly informed Cordelia that she
saw only one solution: she was headed for east, for Praes. She would be
taking the Marshal of Callow and the remains of the Second Army with
her, as well as the reassembled First. A few Chosen and Damned as well,
as she intended on settling the war for the Tower and returning west
with mages in large enough numbers the Hellgates could be handled by
Praesi magics. The Black Queen had not pretended that anything Cordelia
could say might sway her form that decision, but the part that had truly
cut had been the seemingly heartfelt condolences about Uncle Klaus.

It had seemed obscene to Cordelia that the Queen of Callow had spoken
more to him than she had, this last year. That she\ldots{} The First
Prince mastered herself, evenly breathing. The east was beyond
Cordelia's grasp, it was no longer her trouble. She would see to the
west as much as she still could, to her last breath, even though she
knew in the deepest of her heart that the outcome was already decided.
Procer would fall because it was simply no longer capable of standing.
If the war was not won soon it was going to break, and the war would not
be won soon. In truth it might be that victory was no longer possible,
Cordelia admitted to herself. Or that if it were achieved, the
Principate Procer would not live to see that achievement.

And facing that brutal truth was part of her duty, to plan for it. So
Cordelia Hasenbach's mind slowly stirred awake from the numbness,
considering how any part of Procer might still be saved from the coming
onslaught -- how its \emph{people} might be saved. And there was a
darker duty still, one that she despised but must consider anyway.
Should the Enemy triumph, should it all come to the worst of all
ends\ldots{}

``Send for the others,'' the First Prince of Procer finally said, tone
steady. ``And for mage of the Red Lions as well, if you please.''

The Forgetful Librarian slowly nodded, then rose to her feet to see it
done. Cordelia would need to speak with a man she had hoped she would
not see again before the war was at an end. Not out of distaste for him,
but because of what she had sent him to guard: the ancient corpse that
had once lain in the depths of Lake Artoise, and the weapon that had
been made of it. For Cordelia was a Hasenbach, in the end.

If it came to it, she would do what she must: better that some of
Calernia survive than none at all.\\
---

It was a delicate balance to maintain, to keep a civil war going without
ever being at genuine risk of losing it.

Malicia liked to think of it as painting with her own blood, drawing on
the famous turn of phrase by Maleficent the Second. Every success in
guiding the war according to her design came at the expense of carving
away a sliver from the pedestal of her perceived superior position, and
should the game be kept going for too long -- or defeats not of her own
making be inflicted upon her -- then she ran the risk of that pedestal
truly being toppled. It had not come to pass, of course. The Dread
Empress of Praes had begun to prepare for this conflict several months
before the first sword was drawn, and she'd had contingencies in place
regarding civil war for decades prior.

Agents seeded and left to grow, traitors and assassins and impostors.
Bribes and blackmail, debts to call on and more highborn in the palm of
her hand than anyone alive might suspect. High Lady Tasia Sahelian had
seen through parts of the preparations, in olden days, but now Tasia was
dead and Wolof ruled by a young man she had personally seen soulboxed.
High Lord Sargon Sahelian was, amusingly enough, one of her most ardent
partisans well beyond the influence she could truly exert on him. He had
bloodied Wolof taking it from his aunt, so he now craved years under the
protection of a greater power to rebuild his domain in peace.

And, for all that Abreha of Aksum -- Sepulchral, as she now styled
herself -- remained breathing, east of the Wasaliti there was no greater
power than Dread Empress Malicia. \emph{So long as I do not slip}, Alaya
reminded herself, studying the board before her. She'd always enjoyed
shatranj, even when she had still been her father's daughter and not a
prisoner in a golden gaol. It was a game of logic and sequence, of
anticipating the movements of your opponent, which had always appealed
to her. Wekesa had enjoyed the occasional game with her when he'd
visited Ater, the two of them spending more time playing and gossiping
over their common companions over wine than attending to the matters of
state Alaya had claimed the time for.

These days, though, Malicia played mostly against herself. The Dread
Empress of Praes considered the lay of the pieces, the disarray of black
and white that signaled the tail end of a match closely fought, and slid
her last black mage down a diagonal. Soft footsteps told her that Ime
had joined her without the need for the empress to look away from the
board. This was not her bedchambers, simply a study, but her spymistress
was one of the very few people who had access to the enchanted secret
passage whose door opened behind her.

``Speak,'' Malicia said.

``Our people in Procer confirmed that Queen Catherine is headed for
Praes,'' Ime said. ``Already orders have been sent to Laure by the Black
Queen to prepare the supplies for a campaign in the Wasteland.''

Malicia cocked an eyebrow.

``They cannot afford one,'' the empress said.

The intricacies of the internal politics of the Grand Alliance aside,
Alaya was speaking to the plain realities of hard coin. Callow was not
flush with gold, having already spent most of the coin it had received
for brokering a peace between the dwarves and the drow, and Procer was
so beggared these days that it was often resorting to paying in goods
rather than gold for the Callowan grain and cattle it so desperately
needed. In practice, the Kingdom of Callow was simply not wealthy of
enough to afford a war on a second front. It did not have the steel, the
gold or the manpower to attempt such an enterprise. That had been part
and parcel of Malicia's strategy to contain the Black Queen from the
very start: make dealing with the Tower a choice between diplomacy and
bankruptcy.

``They're pulling out the First and Second Army from Procer,'' Ime
replied. ``As for coin, Duchess Kegan was instructed to borrow from the
northern barons if need be.''

They'd have wealth tucked aside, Malicia reluctantly admitted in a
mental calculation. The lands under the baronies of Harrow and Hedges
had been only lightly touched by the Tenth Crusade and their rulers had
made a tidy profit selling their goods to a beleaguered south during the
reconstruction of Callow after Second Liesse. More than that, they would
be willing to lend. The barons were not unaware that their adversarial
relationship with Catherine Foundling had barred them from the Callowan
halls of power, so they would be eager to get a foot in -- particularly
if the debt was to be ultimately shouldered by the much more friendly
Vivienne Dartwick.

No doubt a few handsome spare sons would be sent along with the coin,
bearing hints that a newborn Callowan dynasty could do with an infusion
of fresh noble blood. Malicia was not unfamiliar with the tactic, her
hand having been sought with varying degrees of aggressiveness over
decades. Organising particularly painful deaths for those who dared to
insist too much had been one of the few instances in which Malicia had
worked closely with the Scribe. Eudokia was no friend of hers, but the
other woman had inherited that very Delosi penchant for meticulous
punishment of the contemptible.

``Who will hold command?'' Malicia asked, eyes still on the board.

She moved a pale knight, venturing deep behind an arrant line of pawns.

``Abigail the Fox has been left in command of the Third Army in Hainaut,
so she'd dredging up Marshal Juniper herself,'' Ime said, tone wary.

The empress was not so affected.

``She is a skilled tactician,'' Malicia calmly said, ``and a general to
take seriously, but her reputation is exaggerated. Rozala Malanza would
have beaten her decisively in Iserre if the Black Queen had not
intervened at the last moment. Marshal Nim should be her match, if it
comes to that.''

Given a decade perhaps the `Hellhound' would fully grow into her
talents, having been seasoned by the Uncivil Wars, but for now the
experience of the commanders that had served since the Conquest was
difficult to match for such a young woman. It would tell, particularly
in treacherous grounds like those of the Wasteland. Still, Malicia did
mourn that such a talent had been stolen away from the Empire. It had
been a stroke of terrible luck, that General Istrid would die during
Second Liesse and so leave her daughter adrift and her old legion easily
led astray. Not the greatest misfortune to come out of that battle by
any measure, but a misfortune nonetheless.

``She will be coming personally, Your Majesty,'' Ime quietly said. ``The
Black Queen. And she pulled away two of her armies from the war on the
dead, against our expectations. She is taking a much harder line than we
believed she would.''

Her spymistress was not incorrect, Malicia thought as she moved a black
tower near the centre of the board. The Dread Empress did not find it
entirely surprising that after what the Callowans had quaintly named the
`Night of Knives' their queen would balk at a diplomatic resolution of
their disagreements, but she \emph{had} expected that Cordelia Hasenbach
would push for such an initiative. The burdens of the war should have
rent Procer asunder by now and forced the First Prince to seek terms,
even if behind the Black Queen's back, but out of Salia there was only
silence. Scribe had seized the reins of the remaining eyes in Procer,
which meant information trickled east only at a glacial pace. Alaya slid
a white mage, taking a pawn.

``She cannot afford a battle with either the Tower or Abreha,'' Malicia
said. ``The ensuing casualties would make impossible an assault on
Keter. It is posturing, Ime.''

``She thinks us weak,'' Ime said.

``Which will make all the stronger an impression on her when it is
revealed otherwise,'' Malicia said. ``I have no intention of offering
onerous terms to turn on the Dead King, the shock and an amenable
bargain will see us through.''

The priority would be dismantling the Grand Alliance as continental
power. So long as Callow was leveraged to leave it after the war Alaya
expected that old rivalries between it and Procer would resume, most
likely through competing commercial interests, and it would be child's
play to cause incidents at the border between Procer and the Dominion.
Her plans had not all gone perfectly, of course. The matters down south
had turned against her and she would admit that the Stygian coup had
been a complete surprise, but General Basilia's victories brought
opportunity with them. Sponsoring an eastern alliance within the Free
Cities to rival the western Helikean bloc would check Grand Alliance
influence in the region.

Already the Secretariat was willing to privately entertain her envoys,
worried that Delos would be gobbled up by the victorious marauding
general.

``Or she could try to enthrone another in your place,'' Ime murmured.

Alaya's fingers tightened around a black knight. Malicia cocked an
amused eyebrow.

``He has no armies, little practical support and fewer allies than I
have fingers,'' the Dread Empress of Praes said. ``Amadeus has not
returned to my side, but he has not raised a rebel flag beyond that
unfortunate lapse at the Peace of Salia.''

Reconciliation might still be possible, she left implied. And Amadeus
was in Praes, that much had been confirmed, but her once Black Knight
had not made many visible waves. He had not sought allies within the
highborn, reached out to the self-proclaimed Dread Empress Sepulchral or
even come out of the woodworks to lead the deserter legions in the Green
Stretch. The last in particular was a shame. It would have simplified
things a great deal in some ways. Malicia was inclined to believe that
Ranger had been an anchor around his neck, this time: for all that she
was a fearsome force of violence, at the moment the half-elf was also
being hunted by the Emerald Swords.

So long as she remained his companion, Amadeus could not come into the
light without having those ten monsters coming for wherever he dwelled.
Alaya released the knight, turning to meet her spymistress' eyes. Ime
looked troubled, as she often was these days. She was growing old, for
all that rituals still kept the worst ravages of time away, frailer in
both body and mind than the bold woman she had been in their youth.

``You have concerns,'' Malicia said.

``In understand why we cultivated the perception of our weakness,'' Ime
said. ``So long as we were a genuine military concern for the Grand
Alliance, I agree that we ran certain\ldots{} risks.''

Like Catherine Foundling gating in through the Twilight Ways and
beginning to drown cities, driven to hard measures by the fear of the
Grand Alliance buckling under a war being fought on two fronts. Much
easier for Praes to be beset by civil strife, a threat still but only a
distant one. Not urgent, an enemy that outright threatened the survival
of Calernia. Not that Malicia herself did not genuinely believe that the
Dead King had any real chance of winning, for Evil did not win wars, but
then it was not her soldiers dying in droves. She had ensured that the
Praesi civil war under her watch was to be largely bloodless, mostly
fought through raids and maneuvering.

``Yet that perception may yet come back to haunt us,'' Ime continued.
``She despises us, Malicia. She might refuse to deal with the Tower even
if it's the safer path, so long as there is another path at all. Another
credible candidate.''

Malicia studied her spymistress. It was not assassination being alluded
to here, of course. Ime had argued for it in the past but Alaya was
still unwilling. Such an attempt would be laughably unlikely to succeed,
besides, so long as he had Ranger by his side. Why even consider the
option, with that in mind? No, it was a different sort of measure that
Ime was arguing for. Alaya looked down at the board and rested a finger
atop the black knight she had left behind, thinking for a moment.
Sometimes childish dreams had to be let go of, she thought. Even when it
was painful. There would be no returning to the way things used to be,
and pretending otherwise was embracing the noose.

She tipped over the knight with a flick of her finger, the ebony piece
clattering against the board.

``Your advice has merit,'' Dread Empress Malicia said. ``Send for
Marshal Nim.''

Her spymistress watched her carefully.

``You'll do it, then?''

``Yes,'' the Dread Empress of Praes said. ``I will recognize her as my
Black Knight.''

---

It was a pleasant night out, especially with a bottle of wine and stolen
roasted chicken to gnaw on.

The hinterlands of Aksum seemed perpetually doomed to being set aflame,
Amadeus of the Green Stretch mused, since a mere few decades after he'd
torched them on his way to besieging the city the High Lord of Wolof was
now doing the same. Young Sargon was also abducting people to fill up
the city that his aunt had mutilated on her way out, however, which
Amadeus found an interesting variation on the usual Praesi civil war. It
was important to keep those things fresh, he felt, and Gods knew that
the Dread Empire had a great deal of practice bleeding itself. The
dark-haired man chewed on his second chicken leg thoughtfully, watching
the smoke rising in the distance. Another village burned. They ought to
get moving soon, he figured, else they would risk running into raiders.

Amadeus wasn't exactly afraid of the outcome that would ensue, but it
wouldn't be subtle and that lack was a lot more dangerous than those
raiders could ever hope to be.

He wasn't even halfway through the leg when he first glimpsed Hye coming
up the path, noticing the splash of red blood on her sleeves when she
got closer. Ah, fruitful talks then. She'd always been such a skilled
diplomat, if one with a particularly narrow repertoire. He let himself
drink in the sight of her for a moment, the long locks framing the high
cheekbones and those clever dark brown eyes. Amadeus had seen her in
everything but bare skin and moonlight to mail and cloak caked in filth,
and even after all these years the faint note of wonder had yet to fade.
The love of his life approached, taking a long look at him and narrowing
her eyes.

``You ate both legs, you jackass,'' Hye Su, who some knew as the Ranger,
noted.

``So I did,'' Amadeus, cheerfully replied. ``You should have stolen your
own chicken, if you wanted the choice cut.''

Though he had once been known as some manner of knight, he'd never
bothered with chivilary: to add insult to injury, he also tossed the
bones of the first leg he'd eaten at her and watched as she easily
dodged. Her lips twitched, though.

``I should leave you hanging for this,'' Hye complained.

``You won't,'' Amadeus smiled. ``You got to kill something, it always
puts you in a chatty mood.''

``I don't get \emph{chatty},'' Hye denied, deeply offended.

``Of course you don't,'' Amadeus pleasantly smiled.

He had to duck a chicken bone, but it was a victory in every way that
mattered. Though huffing while she did, she dropped at his side and the
both of them sat back against the tall milestone that some ancient High
Lord of Aksum had raised on the hill near the road. Hye naturally helped
herself to the rest of the chicken, producing a knife so she could pop
the juicy but cooling pieces into her mouth, and the two of them sat
closely together under the night sky.

``So I was talking with this fae,'' Hye said.

``As one does,'' Amadeus amiably agreed.

``He had this friend that knew a friend,'' Ranger mused. ``And
\emph{they'd} heard that the Black Queen, out west, she's headed our
way.''

``To clarify,'' he said, ``was this helpful rumour shared before or
after you started stabbing him?''

``Eh,'' Hye said. ``You know how it is with fairies. There's stabbing
and then there's \emph{stabbing}.''

Sadly, Amadeus of the Green Stretch did know how it was with fairies. It
was only marginally better than dealing with Wasteland highborn,
something that had driven him to some fairly infamous bouts of stabbing
over the years.

``Shouldn't be a long journey through the Ways,'' he said. ``Two, three
months at most.''

``Sooner, if Indrani's guiding her,'' Hye said. ``She's always been a
natural at pathfinding.''

Amadeus hummed, amused at the understated pride in her voice. Though Hye
did not visibly play favorites among her pupils, she'd always favoured
those who used bows slightly over the rest.

``It is time for us to surface, then,'' he said. ``We need to get the
last pieces in place before my own former pupil arrives.''

Hye grinned, all teeth and malice, and he felt his heart skip a beat.
Even now, after all these years\ldots{} well, he was not as young as
he'd once been, but she did not seem to mind so what did he care? If
anything she seemed to like the grey in his hair, which he had not known
he was worried about until he felt relieved she did. It had been some
years since Amadeus had last felt insecure, even unknowingly, and he had
found it almost refreshing.

``Finally,'' Ranger said. ``I've been enjoying laying low, Amadeus, but
sometimes you just need to bite down on something you know?''

``I do,'' he replied in a murmur. ``And this is long overdue.''

He looked east, where in the distance waited the gargantuan shape of the
Tower jutting out from Ater, and he raised his half-empty bottle of wine
in a toast. When was he to settle his accounts, if not the end times?

If the song refused to leave him, then he would \emph{silence} it.