webcrawl/APGTE/Book-6/tex/Ch-046.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-33-convenience}{%
\section{Chapter 33: Convenience}\label{chapter-33-convenience}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Thirty-seven: theft in the service of Above is not a sin. It is,
however, still a crime. Be discreet.''}

-- ``Two Hundred Heroic Axioms'', author unknown
\end{quote}

``Shall we begin with the least contentious of the subjects to be
broached?''

Her Most Serene Highness Cordelia Hasenbach, First Prince of Procer,
Warden of the West and Protector of the Realms of Man, struck me as
looking rather cautious right now. Wary of angering me? Might be,
depending on what she considered to be the least contentious of the
things we needed to talk about. It was always relative, when it came to
stuff like this -- the least murderous of three High Lords still usually
had an unfortunate amount of murder under their belt. I took a long sip
from my cup, letting the pleasant taste of my favourite wine linger
against my palate.

``I'm all ears,'' I said.

``There are, from the reports I have received about the incident at the
Arsenal, two Damned who will need to face punishment,'' the First Prince
said. ``Namely, the Concocter and the Hunted Magician.''

I smothered a grimace at the pun, which I would generously assume to
have been unintentional.

``All other villains who were involved are dead,'' I agreed.

So that was why she'd been cautious, huh. Dealing with villains was my
legal responsibility, in the end. The Hunted Magician would stand trial
before a tribunal, since he'd actively helped along an invasion of the
Arsenal and the Arsenal was an interest of all the signatory states of
the Grand Alliance, but the tribunal itself couldn't actually sentence
him to anything. Only I could, as his representative under the Terms. In
theory, at least. In practice, if I outright ignored the recommendations
given out by a tribunal that'd count the White Knight and
representatives for both Procer and Levant, I'd be asking for a
diplomatic shitstorm.

Hanno would be in the same situation when it came to the Red Axe. I'd
have a seat on her tribunal as well, as both the representative for both
Callow and Below's lot, but I wouldn't have the right to pass a sentence
on her any more than the First Prince or whoever the Dominion ended up
sending. There were good reasons for that. In my case, for example, if I
had the authority to sentence heroes it'd lead to the rebellion of more
than a few before the day was out. Hanno of Arwad was trusted as an
adjudicator, and only him. Though while he had the same right to
outright ignore anything the rest of the tribunal would say, when it
came down to it he'd also have the same considerations as me to deal
with.

Hasenbach was treading carefully here because, after pushing for the Red
Axe to be tried by Procer and not under the Terms, she did not want me
to mistake her asking about my current leanings on punishing my charges
as an attempt on her part to keep usurping authority over the Terms.

``May I be blunt?'' I asked.

Something like an amused flicker passed through those blue eyes.

``Have you not been?'' the First Prince of Procer asked.

Well now, I thought, lips twitching. Get another few drinks into that
one and she might actually be fun.

``I don't think you're trying to get your hands on the Terms,'' I
frankly said. ``Only an idiot would try to make that many Named into a
personal army, and even back when negotiating with you regularly drove
me to screaming I did not believe you to be one. You don't need to tread
lightly for fear of offending me there. If I consider you to be
overstepping I will say as much, but I am not looking to be offended.''

Blue eyes considered me, weighing the extent of my honesty in speaking,
then she nodded.

``A lengthy trial for the Hunted Magician would be damaging,'' Cordelia
said. ``And your intentions when it comes to the Concocter remain
unclear. I would establish as soon as possible what you intend, so that
the affair can be solved swiftly when it comes to deliberation.''

``You won't be alone in that tribunal,'' I pointed out. ``And, now that
I think of it, will it be you personally or a representative?''

``I might have nominated Princess Rozala if we could afford to pull her
from the front, but as circumstances stand I will personally represent
the Principate,'' she said. ``And while I will freely profess to be
unable to account for the White Knight, Lord Yannu Marave's interests
are well known to me.''

Ah, so Juniper's old foe from the Champion's Blood was the one the
Dominion has sent. Considering the Cleves front was supposed to be
holding steady at the moment I supposed he was the natural pick. My own
two Levantines might represent a significant bloc in the Dominion now
that they were betrothed, but they were both still a little young for
this sort of game. The Lord of Alava had a weightier reputation than
either and probably better understood how to preserve the interests of
Levant.

``What \emph{does} Levant want out of this?'' I asked, genuinely
curious.

``To ensure punishment is dealt,'' the First Prince said, ``and to
avoid, at all costs, even the shadow of a precedent that might force
them to ennoble one of their Damned.''

Yeah, that sounded about right. Aside from the Grey Pilgrim, whose
concerns tended to extend far from the borders of the Dominion, in my
experience the Blood tended to hardly care about what went on beyond
their borders. So long as their anger wasn't actively courted, they were
unlikely to take a stand.

``Neither should be an issue,'' I said. ``When it comes to the Hunted
Magician, considering his cooperation with the Wandering Bard it's a
given that he loses the right to object to assignments for the remainder
of the duration of the Terms.''

``Yet, given the nature of his talents, he would still be best employed
at the Arsenal,'' Cordelia skeptically noted.

Meaning it was an empty punishment, as far as she was concerned, since
he wouldn't be going anywhere or be losing anything.

``That'd be the basic consequence of dealing with an enemy, not the
punishment,'' I replied. ``For that, I'm currently leaning towards a
fine. Within the next three days we should have estimates of what the
damages to the Arsenal will cost to repair. A fine of that amount will
be given.''

I paused.

``Once for each signatory nation of the Grand Alliance,'' I said. ``In
addition, he will personally have to repay the pensions any of our
nations give to the families of soldiers who died during the attack.''

The First Prince's brow rose, ever so slightly.

``That would be a considerable sum,'' she said.

More than any man could repay in a lifetime, though admittedly the
occasional villain got more than that. With a debt like that over his
head the Magician was a lot more likely to leg it to the Free Cities
after the war than stick around and repay it. I'd considered that, of
course. The trick was in how it'd be paid back.

``It would be up to the nations to decide in what nature they might
prefer that repayment,'' I said. ``The Kingdom of Callow, however, will
accept it in artefact-crafting and enchanting work.''

Meaning Vivienne would have a fortune's worth of labour from one of the
finest mages on the continent to call on when her reign began, already
paid for. The Rhenian princess considered me for a moment, remaining
silent as her well-honed mind parsed out all the implications.

``While heavily in debt, to a sum total comparable to a prince's
treasury if not greater, the Magician will also have direct ties to the
rulers of three great nations,'' Cordelia quietly said. ``In the world
of the Accords, that would be the sort of protection one of the Damned
might well kill for.''

It really was. So long as three crowns had a fortune's worth of highly
valuable and difficult labour left to extract out of the Hunted
Magicians' hide, none of them were likely to let the man get his head
cut off by an overzealous hero or bar their door to him. I was still
making the man a beggar for at least a decade, forcing him to largely
live on the charity of the patrons he'd work for, so it wasn't like I
was letting him off easy. But it was the sort of punishment that would
win me points with the cleverer among my kind and avoid alienating the
Magician entirely.

``The Concocter deserves less punishment,'' I said, ``and I don't intend
to convene a tribunal over it. She'll lose the right to refuse
assignments, like the Magician, but aside from that I only intend to
have her personally brew tailored potions for every lastingly wounded
soldier in the Arsenal or the family of any deceased. The ingredients
will, of course, come out of her pocket.''

A princely gift, in the sense that few aside from princes would
otherwise be able to afford the Concocter brewing for them personally. I
owed the woman a favour for having kept Hakram alive, so I intended to
offer to quietly float her a loan from my own funds to pay for the
ingredients. If it just so happened that I forgot to ask for interest or
a fixed timeline for repayment, well, so be it. Hakram was worth a lot
more to me than the coin, and it would have still been a bargain for a
hundred times the price.

``A harsh price, given the paucity of her involvement,'' Cordelia said,
``but that will win you esteem from Lord Yannu. You foresee no
complications there?''

``None,'' I said.

``I had expected that I would have to push for harsher sentences,'' the
First Prince admitted. ``In that I did you disservice, for you have
struck an admirable balance between stern and sufferable.''

I snorted.

``I have weaknesses as a queen, glaring ones,'' I said, ``but I've been
a warlord and leader of Named since I was seventeen. When it comes to
that, you can expect a steady hand of me.''

It wasn't the same, handing out a sentence as a queen and as the leader
of a band. No ruler in the world had absolute authority, true enough,
but it was an even more tenuous thing Named. Too loose a hand and they
would run wild, too firm and they would leave. I'd believed my father to
have been as a lord over the Calamities, when I'd been younger, and
half-believed it a fault when I later grasped he was anything but. Being
a representative under Terms had forced me to understand, though, how
delicate a balancing act his leadership of that band had really been.
I'd done this for many more Named than Black had ever led, but I'd also
done it for scarcely two years and with literal Death knocking at the
door up north. He, on the other hand, had kept the Calamities largely
sane and safe for several decades even with few outside threats to keep
them together.

``Talent is distributed blind to titles and breeding,'' Cordelia said.

I'd take that for the backhanded compliment that it was. I doubted
Hasenbach and I would ever see eye to eye on a lot of things -- it'd be
hard to, when she would always put Procer first and I Callow -- but
that'd not prevented a degree of respect from emerging as our working
relationship grew less venomous. I would not soon forget how many of my
soldiers had died in a war I'd not wanted to fight, or the burning anger
of having peace refused again and again, but I had less unpleasant
things to add to the tally now. She'd turned out too damn useful over
the last two years for the old anger to be the only thing I associated
with her now.

``Flattery,'' I said. ``Which tells me we've gotten to more contentious
territory. Which poison will be your pick, Your Highness: the fool with
the god-killing sword or the threefold nightmare of jurisdiction?''

The blonde Lycaonese sipped at her mead, the largest I'd yet seen her
take. She'd be laughed out of a Callowan tavern as lightweight, I
suspected, but then she didn't strike me as the kind of woman to step
into a tavern in the first place.

``I have concerns about the Mirror Knight, as Prince Frederic made known
to you,'' Cordelia said. ``I understand that you have some of your
own.''

Much as I would have enjoyed venting about Christophe de Pavanie, I
wasn't having a drink with Indrani. Petulance would get me nowhere, so
it'd be best to keep this concise.

``The extent of my concerns will depend on his actions over the coming
few days,'' I said. ``He has made demands wildly beyond his authority --
a full pardon for the Red Axe -- and that he's made demands at all is
alarming, but so far that's only been words. So long as it doesn't go
further than that, I'm willing to let a lot of it be water under the
bridge.''

The Mirror Knight had turned what would have been certain death for
Hakram into something less immediately mortal, though if the Concocter
hadn't been on her way Adjutant would have died regardless. I owed him
significantly less than I did the Concocter, but I owed him still. So
I'd swallow my anger and let bygones be bygones, so long as he behaved.
Hasenbach's eyes went sharp.

``You do not believe he will necessarily defer to the White Knight,''
the First Prince stated.

It was not a question and neither of us pretended otherwise.

``I've difficulty putting my finger on how messy that might get,'' I
admitted. ``But if they disagree, the Mirror Knight will not simply
capitulate.''

``A coup, even a soft one, would be unacceptable to the Principate,''
Cordelia coolly said. ``The Terms as signed do not have provisions for
the White Knight to be replaced, save should he die.''

``The legalities won't kill this,'' I said. ``Not with heroes,
Hasenbach. Villains you can cow or bribe, but that won't work with
Above's lot. They'll hold to doing \emph{the right thing} even when it's
an anchor around their neck -- or everybody else's, for that matter.''

She did not reply for a long moment and I bit my tongue. It'd come out
just a little too caustic to have sounded entirely objective, which I
regretted already. Anger would win me no points with this one, even if
she decided it was justified anger.

``Would you be opposed to my intervening in the matter as First
Prince?'' she asked. ``While this cannot be termed as an entirely
Proceran issue, given those involved, it can not be denied that my
subjects are at the heart of it.''

``If you can disarm him with words I'll applaud,'' I said. ``But this
could turn on you right quick. If you're seen as interceding on my
behalf that'll taint you by association, and in a way that might not be
reparable.''

It shouldn't be forgotten that the Mirror Knight would be her problem a
lot longer than mine, assuming we all survived the war. He was a
powerful Proceran hero with ties to a royal house, there'd be no
disappearing into countryside obscurity for him.

``I will take your warning under consideration,'' the First Prince
mildly said.

Meaning that I was trying to teach a knight how to ride, but very
politely implied. Fair enough.

``The Severance remains the most salient issue concerning him,'' she
continued.

My eyes narrowed.

``And what is Procer's stance on that?'' I asked.

``Given that it was forged with materials that the Kingdom of Callow
provided on Arsenal grounds and as part of an Arsenal undertaking, the
artefact is to be considered a war asset of the Grand Alliance,'' the
First Prince replied, the answer smooth and easy.

Practiced as well, no doubt. While Callow arguably had the best claim to
the sword since I'd provided the initial material of it -- though it
shouldn't be forgot it was an aspect ripped out of a woman at least in
theory a Proceran subject -- my interest in securing it for the kingdom
after the war was lukewarm at best. The First Prince's stance here was
nuanced enough I wouldn't outright be renouncing the claim I hardly
cared about, just weakening it, but it came with the upside of having
the Severance designated as a war asset of the Grand Alliance. That
meant we could strip it and assign it wherever we wanted, so long as the
three signatory nations weren't stuck in an impasse.

``I'm amenable to those terms,'' I said.

She was just a tad too slow in suppressing her surprise. The eyes gave
it away. Hadn't expected me to give my inch quite so swiftly, huh? If
there'd been a Named back home that was a good fit for the sword I might
have fought harder, but there simply wasn't one.

``Then we are in agreement,'' Cordelia faintly smiled. ``I expect that
Lord Yannu will be of a like mind, as it happens.''

I snorted. Yeah, I'd heard that Mirror Knight wasn't all that popular
with the Levantines. They were a touchy lot, especially when it came to
their history with the Principate, and Christophe de Pavanie had been
cursed with the twin disadvantages of being Proceran and prone to giving
offence.

``The little I heard of the White Knight was in partial agreement to
this,'' I noted. ``Though he mentioned that he considers the Mirror
Knight the best fit for the sword when it \emph{is} assigned.''

``It would be doing a disservice to the other Chosen to refrain from
even considering their candidature,'' the blue-eyed princess
diplomatically replied.

Meaning she \emph{really} wasn't eager to leave it with good ol'
Christophe. Music to my ears. I supposed from her perspective it'd be
handing both a powerful weapon and a powerful symbol to hero already
tied to a rival power within her borders, something that was bound to
come back to bite her down the line. Mind you, the damned thing was a
sword meant to be used so it couldn't \emph{all} be about the politics.

``Come the time to assault Keter, if he's truly the best pick then I'll
swallow my tongue and do what needs to be done,'' I admitted. ``Until
then I'd prefer him nowhere near that blade.''

``Establishing the precedent that the Grand Alliance can strip and
assign the sword is more important than the hands holding it at the
moment,'' the First Prince said. ``Though I will not deny that removing
it as a symbol will be helpful considering he appears to be, as you have
said, trying to arrange a pardon for the Red Axe.''

And so we finally got to the thorniest of the knots.

``I imagine your stance on \emph{that} won't have changed since it was
conveyed to me,'' I said.

Meaning that she wanted the Red Axe tried under Proceran law for the
attempted regicide of Frederic Goethal, regardless of any other claim
there might be on the heroine's life.

``In essence it has not,'' Cordelia calmly said. ``I am sure that, as a
ruler yourself, you can understand the difficulty in being unable to
hold a trial over the attempted assassination of one of my princes. An
attempt that took place before more than half a hundred witnesses, no
less.''

``Her slaying of the Wicked Enchanter was done in front of more than
twice that,'' I pointed out.

Which wasn't the issue, I knew even as I quibbled on the detail. Her
issue was that the First Prince of Procer was finding herself unable to
punish or even imprison someone who'd tried to kill a sitting member of
the Highest Assembly, which must admittedly be infuriating.

``I do not deny that her breach of Terms also deserves punishment,'' she
said. ``Simply that her actions against the Principate take
precedence.''

``We can't try a corpse,'' I frankly said. ``Which is what her actions
would fetch, though I'm not sure what manner of execution follows
attempted regicide in Brus.''

``Boiled alive in oil,'' the First Prince replied without batting an
eye.

Grisly, but hardly any worse than the drawing and quartering it would
earn in Callow -- and even that bloody practice was well shy of the
ancient atrocity known as \emph{red hangings} I preferred not to think
too much about.

``Charming,'' I drily said. ``Might hinder the process of questioning
some, if you ask me, though on the upside at least it'll be a quick
trial.''

``If I were to concede that a trial could be held under the Terms before
the sentence to the Principate's own was applied, would that remedy your
objection?'' the blonde princess asked.

That was already a better look for the whole affair, but it was also
strictly that: a look. In substance, we'd still be establishing the
jurisdiction of Proceran law over the Named serving under the Terms.

``What kind of a trial would you be holding, exactly?'' I asked,
frowning. ``I'm familiar with Salienta's Graces, but I recall there's
some sort of exception for matters of treason that explains why your
people have two kinds of magistrates.''

``Treason, heresy and royal dues fall under the authority of the crowns
and not the rights of the people of Procer,'' Hasenbach clarified.
``Given the unfeasibility of princes personally seeing to such
judgements over their entire holdings, royal magistrates might be
appointed to do so in their stead. In this particular case, however,
Prince Frederic would be entitled by royal prerogative to render
judgement himself.''

Which would actually play out decently with villains, I thought. It'd be
a heroic mess cleaned up by a heroic blade. I'd have to posture a bit
and agitate in the Wicked Enchanter's name, but the Kingfisher Prince
beheading the Red Axe would settle this halfway agreeably for everyone.
Which made it all the more galling that he wasn't going to be doing
that. That lovely thing he did with his hips wasn't anywhere near enough
to excuse the headaches he was causing me.

``Yet he won't,'' I grunted, not hiding my displeasure. ``So where does
it go from there?''

``A formal trial by the Highest Assembly,'' Cordelia said. ``Which I
will admit would have\ldots{} uses in settling other troubles.''

It took me a moment to put the pieces together, as I was not used to
putting myself in the shoes of the First Prince. Ah, she could use this
whole affair to turn the screws on Prince Gaspard Langevin. The man
would be fraying his ties to the Mirror Knight if he voted to have the
Red Axe killed, since the hero wanted her pardoned, but it'd still be
better than the alternative. Should he vote for acquittal after all, or
even a lesser punishment, he'd be fraying ties to \emph{every single
prince and princess of Procer}. No one, after all, was denying that the
Red Axe had tried to kill Frederic. Considering how popular the Prince
of Brus was in the north, actually, even if simply ended up abstaining
he'd be damaging his reputation a great deal in the region.

I could admire the cleverness of it, and I was pleased Hasenbach was
taking the Langevin problem seriously, but the nature of my own
objections to this mess had not changed either.

``I understand why you want your trial, I really do,'' I admitted. ``In
your place, I'd be pushing for the same thing.''

``Yet you are not in my place,'' the blue-eyed woman said, smiling
thinly.

``No, I'm not,'' I said. ``I'm speaking as the representative for
Below's champions. And Procer simply isn't trusted enough for them to be
comfortable with it having the authority to hang them.''

Hasenbach actually tended to be held in high esteem by the more
intellectual of my lot, as a ruler whose knack for legal manoeuvring and
diplomacy had led to remarkable achievements involving relatively little
warfare, but not even the most admiring would want the Highest Assembly
to have so much as a speck of authority over them. Even the other side
of the fence, Hanno's crowd, was unlikely to have a much better opinion
of such a measure. Heroes tended to see laws and crowns as obstructive,
when they weren't the ones behind them, and Procer's rulers still had
spectacularly bad reputation abroad for the most part.

``That reluctance is not unearned,'' Cordelia said, ``yet it, too, must
have limits. Minor crimes such as theft and assault I will not balk at
leaving to the Terms, in the same way that an army in the field is
subject to military justice and not that of a prince. Yet I cannot allow
attempted regicide on Proceran soil without having it face Proceran
justice. It would undermine the peace of the entire realm, establishing
for all to see that Chosen and Damned live under different laws than the
rest.''

And that would go over significantly worse in the Principate than it
would back home, where centuries of Good Kings and Wizards of the West
had associated Names with authority, or even Praes -- where being in a
realm of your own, untouchable by your lessers, was half the draw of
being Named in the first place. In Procer the people had an expectation
that the law would apply to even rulers, if perhaps not quite as
comprehensively, so the Red Axe slipping the net would be sure to cause
resentment. It was still better than the alternative, in my opinion.

``They do live under different laws, until the war is over,'' I bluntly
said. ``They're called the Terms. They are unfair, set apart their
members from everyone else and even offer amnesty to monsters, but they
are also what has allowed us to muster more than seventy Named to the
defence of Procer. There's a price to bringing in that kind of help,
especially given the lack of trust between most parties involved. Going
back on the nature of the Terms now will cause desertions. `You will be
under the protection of the Terms' does not have quite the same ring to
it when `unless it becomes politically inconvenient' gets added.''

Heroes would at least take infringement there better than villains,
who'd see this as Procer preparing the grounds for purges following the
fall of Keter, but I suspected that tolerance would not survive for
long. The Dominion heroes who'd not immediately balk at being subject to
Proceran law -- something the founders of Levant had actively warred
against! -- would sour on it the moment it put them in a situation where
they had to willingly take punishment by a prince. The contingent from
the Free Cities wouldn't be quite as incensed, but they were likely to
band together for protection and it would all go to the Hells if the
rulers of Procer started courting native heroes to bring into their
personal orbit.

``I am no stranger to the tyranny of convenience, Catherine Foundling,''
Cordelia Hasenbach quietly said, ``but that blade has ever cut both
ways. You fear desertions? I fear \emph{riots}. You fear the collapse of
the fronts? I fear the collapse of \emph{everything behind them}.''

``Armies won't be enough to breach the walls of Keter, Cordelia
Hasenbach,'' I quietly replied. ``You'll need Named, bands of five that
can triumph against impossible odds and the finest killers on Calernia
to bring an end to the Dead King himself. Don't throw away your chance
of winning the war from fear of having already lost it.''

I matched her gaze, unflinching. She was not wrong, I thought, not
really. But then neither was I. And behind the tension of the present I
glimpsed something deeper. The legacy that this golden-haired daughter
of the north wanted to leave behind, a nation of laws and trade and
peace that would at last thrive without attempting to devour all it
beheld. Its edges would scrape against those of my own craved-for
legacy, if we were not careful. I wanted order forced onto the old war,
the first war, the war that had begun the moment Creation did: Above and
Below, the spinning coin of the divine wager. It was rules for those
unearthly champions of black and white I wanted to set down, rules that
went beyond borders and thrones, but my finest intentions would have to
share the world with those same thrones they sought to surpass.

I did not hate what it was that Cordelia Hasenbach wanted to build, but
I would not strip bare my own dream to gild hers.

``It has been some time,'' the First Prince eventually said, ``since I
have last been quite so thoroughly refused.''

She'd not expected me to fold, tonight, but neither had she expected
that I'd not be moved even an inch. I was not surprised, considering the
boon she'd offered me if I saw things her way: accepting the Liesse
Accords as they now stood, without further contest. It was something I
would have paid dearly for, and might still. Yet in the end I was no
more willing to weaken the foundation of the Accords before they were
even signed than she had been willing to let the Choir of Judgement cast
down a sentence on the very floor of the Highest Assembly.

``It gives me no pleasure to rebuff you,'' I honestly said. ``But there
are some days, some choices, where the only thing to be had is your pick
of the shade of bleakness ahead.''

The First Prince of Procer drank deep of her cup, her calm face like a
too-small mask that exhaustion was peeking around the edges of. She saw,
I thought as she turned her gaze to me, something to match that on my
own face. The sum of too many half-nights, too many hard choices, too
many victories that felt like defeats and defeats that felt like wounds.
Sometimes it felt like I was sharp only because the world had whittled
away everything but the sharpness. Rueful, she half-raised her cup
towards me and I returned the gesture. We drank, for what else was there
to do? The glasses were lowered all too soon.

``Is it easier,'' Cordelia softly asked, ``when you are not born to
it?''

Born to the crown, to the sword, to power. I looked down into my cup at
the pale wine still remaining. I thought of the friends I'd buried, of
the decisions that still sometimes haunted me in the dark of night.
There were more of either than I wanted there to be.

``No,'' I faintly replied. ``Not unless you are an even harder woman
than I thought.''

The silence lingered for long moment between us, not entirely
comfortable but neither unpleasant. I looked up at the painted ceiling,
letting out a long breath.

``But if not us, then who?'' I asked, a smile quirking my lips.

I lowered my head to find her studying me quite closely, face grown
serious.

``You might yet be my enemy, I think,'' the First Prince said.

It was true, so I did not deny it. In the end there was peace and then
there was \emph{peace}. It was not yet decided which of these we would
have when the dust settled from Keter's fall.

``And still I find it easier to trust you than many I would call
allies,'' Cordelia continued. ``What a strange thing that is.''

I almost laughed, for I knew exactly what she meant. Even if the day
came where we were allies without doom having marched north to cement
the pact, I'd consider her just as much of an opponent. A rival,
perhaps, in the strangest of ways. The sky was not so large that there
would be enough room for the full span of both our ambitions, and
neither of us was above jostling.

``I imagine that on some nights,'' I half-smiled, ``when we were girls,
without ever knowing it we looked up at the same stars from different
lands.''

She inclined her head by the smallest of measures, and we left it at
that.

Yet there was a whisper in my ear as the silence fell, pleased yet
indistinct. Like a curl of smoke. And for the barest of moments I felt a
warm breath against the back of my neck. A trick of the light had
deepened the darkness in the corners of the hall and I fancied, just for
that fleeting moment, that I glimpsed the silhouette of a great beast
cast there from the shadows.

\emph{Ah}, I thought, smiling a secret smile. \emph{Are you back, old
friend?}

My Name did not answer.

Not yet.