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\hypertarget{chapter-1-debut}{%
\section{Chapter 1: Debut}\label{chapter-1-debut}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``The trick is to always invite an unrelated highborn idiot to
every council. When you inevitably execute them, all the other highborn
idiots will behave for the rest of the discussion.''}

-- Dread Emperor Vindictive I
\end{quote}

It was an impressive watchtower. All red brick and stone, three stories
high and jutting out of the hills with an elegant silhouette. It'd
fallen victim to that unfortunate Praesi tendency of having an open-sky
spellcasting platform instead of a rooftop, but that \emph{was} the most
common practice in the Wasteland. The Sahelians had clearly shelled out
good coin for this place, which made it all the more amusing that they'd
not done the same for the force garrisoning it. The two dozen soldiers
had prudently begun to leg it long before my first knights reached the
bottom of the hills, so now it was my personal banner flying in the
wind.

The phalange who'd pulled down the golden lion banner of the Sahelians
and replaced it with the Sword and Crown was gone, leaving the four of
us to look out at the view spread out below, and even though it was a
thing of beauty I found myself growing irritated. No, not `even though'.
Because.

Wolof was beautiful, and it kind of pissed me off.

``This is ridiculous,'' I complained. ``I read the reports, they had a
goddamn demon loose in the streets just a few years ago.''

``Ah, the old Wasteland special,'' Her Grace, Princess Vivienne of
Callow, drawled.

I rolled my eye at her. Being a magnanimous soul, I was not bitter in
the slightest that she could wear a nice pale blue dress with simple
silver circlet over her milkman's braid instead of, you know, being
stuck in full regalia and the Mantle of Woe. Truly, why would I envy
anyone the privilege of not wearing a fucking cloak in the Wasteland's
heat? It wasn't like I'd seriously considered weaving a miracle that'd
warm her with Night, much less almost done it twice.

I was a better person than that, and also she'd probably notice.

``That's actually civil war,'' Hakram noted. ``Though considering the
demon incident came at the end of a brutal war of succession, you're not
entirely wrong.''

Adjutant was standing on his prosthetic limbs comfortably, not needing
to lean against the crenellation in the slightest, and like it often did
the sight had my lips quirking into a satisfied smile. He wasn't going
to be winning footraces anytime soon and I'd not send him into too rough
a fight, but Hakram was far gone from the days of hissing pain and being
wheelchair-bound. Masego's work on the arm and leg had been
extraordinary, the shifting parts of steel and leather that mimicked
muscles returning much of what he had lost to the tall orc. He no longer
wore the whole set of burned plate he'd once been known by, instead
keeping only the breastplate and the skirt, and his black hair was worn
shorter than I'd seen it in years.

``You can never go wrong betting on civil war, when it comes to Praes,''
Vivienne conceded.

``Don't you two go pretending this is normal,'' I insisted. ``I mean,
look at the place!''

Almost half of Wolof's population had died when Sargon Sahelian rose up
to overthrow his aunt, Lady Tasia, and the situation had gotten bad
enough in there that the Legions of Terror had seen no choice but to
forcefully invest the city. Something their doctrine specifically warned
against attempting unless there was no other choice, when that city was
a High Seat of Praes. Now, though? You'd never know unless you were
told. Tall walls rose elegantly from the dusty ground, all sun-drenched
stone and pale red brick, but from our position here atop a distant hill
we could see a stretch of the city itself and it was \emph{impressive}.

Wolof as it now stood had little to do with the village sprouted around
a ritual site it'd supposedly grown out of. The modern city had actually
shed those old grounds, part of them ending up as a handful of riverside
villages that served as an informal port called Sinka and the rest now a
closed compound to the north of the city that the locals called Zaman
Ango: a great mass of mazes and pyramids hidden behind mud brick walls,
ancient places of power that the Sahelians kept to themselves and their
favourites. The actual city, surrounded by the greater walls, had
instead been cut away at and remade until it was as glorious as its
rulers believed themselves to be.

Broadly speaking, Wolof was a thin half-circle with the flatness facing
north and two parts jutting out of said flatness: towering noble palaces
and the set of fortifications surrounding an aqueduct. Avenues
criss-crossed the length of it like arteries, tying together gates and
districts by a pleasing design, while that great aqueduct -- much too
ornate to be of Miezan make, with its stele-like pillars -- swept down
from a great hill to the north-east like a raised river of stone.
Cisterns and smaller water funnels covered rooftops, spreading out like
a web of stone and copper, while three-story houses on tall steps stood
so close together their backs were as walls. Windows were curved and
often thick pillars of stone jutted out of walls, like strange handholds
for giants to climb.

It was the colour that staggered me, though. Wolof was said to be the
greatest vault of magic in all of Praes, its libraries and spell
repositories rival to the Tower's if not even greater, and unconsciously
that'd made me think of it as dark and dreary. Black magic made into a
city. Instead it was a riot of red and yellow, some paints fading but
others biting fresh, and everywhere subtle lines of green were woven in.
Rooftop gardens gathered around cisterns and pools were adorned with
bright banners -- green and yellow, orange and purple, cream and blue --
hung to look like shivering walls. It was a gorgeous, thriving city that
somehow made Laure look like half a hovel even after being half-razed by
godsdamned demon of Madness. It was infuriating as it was impressive.

The last of us, correctly interpreting my vehemence as a polite and
reasonable request of explanation, broke the almost melancholy she'd
been in as she watched her childhood home in the distance.

``My cousin Sargon was made to study wards as a young man,'' Akua said.
``For a time it was a fad with the great families, after Wekesa the
Warlock came to prominence. Everyone fancied they would raise a mage to
beat him at his own game.''

I snorted. Yeah, they would. Never mind that Masego's father had been
apprentice -- and Apprentice -- to the last Warlock as well as a frankly
ridiculously talented man in a lot of regards. No doubt there'd been an
expectation that gold and a noble pedigree would beat out any peasant
mage's effort at anything.

``How'd that go?'' I asked, genuinely curious.

``Corpses and screaming, mostly,'' Akua noted. ``Warding becomes a
rather dangerous art when one reaches the heights of High Arcana.''

``And this leads to the city looking pristine how?'' Vivienne
impatiently asked.

My successor, made a genuine princess by some truly inspired wrangling
of Callowan law courtesy of Hakram, kept a civil tone as she spoke. Much
of the venom had gone out over the years, though Vivienne quite clearly
despised the Doom of Liesse -- who was not particularly above needling
her when she could, I'd admit.

``Though Sargon was only ever a passable practitioner of the Art,'' Akua
continued, ``he \emph{did} take to the paired engineering studies
impressively. He was often called on for work in Zaman Ango because of
this, and evidently his experiences there proved of use when rebuilding
the city.''

A grunt of acknowledgement was her only answer, while I allowed my own
gaze to wander around.

It was a nice morning, I thought. The sun was warm, the wind lazy and
the company more than decent. It was hard to enjoy nice mornings,
though, when I knew the world was coming closer to toppling into the
dark with every breath we took. Hasenbach was still keeping Procer
together, but the cracks were spreading and I couldn't be sure how long
it would be before the Principate collapsed. Still, at least the view
was stunning. The watchtower the four of us stood on was maybe an hour's
ride away from the city, set on few hilly sloped. South of Wolof, these
were as close to heights as you could get for a dozen miles.

Behind us the Army of Callow and its auxiliaries were encamped in force,
palisades already half-raised, while to the west the raging waters of
the Upper Wasaliti roiled. The east led deeper into the Wasteland, into
the lands of the closest families sworn to the Sahelians, while between
us and the city there was nothing save roads and farmland. Not the kind
of fields you'd see in Callow, though. Small hills of stratified stone
and dust rose gently, with vividly green small `valleys' filled with
orchards or crops nestled in between. I couldn't see much wheat here,
but sweet potatoes and cucumbers were common and I saw fruits that would
be worth a fortune in Callow -- lemons, dates and pineapples, to name
just a few.

``Those small green nooks,'' I said, studying a few of the closer ones
with a narrowed eye. ``There's raised stones around them. Those aren't
wards, though, are they?''

It'd be a frankly absurd amount of magic, if they were, and even people
without the Gift or my sensitivities to power would have been able to
feel it.

``Not exactly,'' Akua hedged. ``It is the setting of a metaphysical
boundary, but nothing as\ldots{} decisive as a ward. It is meant to keep
the magic of field rituals contained when they are used.''

\emph{Right}, I thought. They'd need to, otherwise the inefficiency of
trying to make the ground cultivable would be a nightmare. The amount of
wasted power would make the rituals nigh unusable, and probably wreck
the soil too. There was a reason magical healing was dangerous when you
did it too much in the same place, and the principles involved here
weren't all that different.

``You're saying all those gardens of green were made with blood?''
Vivienne asked, sounding horrified.

``The grounds around Wolof are not so poor,'' Akua replied, shaking her
head. ``Perhaps a tenth of these are made fertile by ritual killing, on
a good year. It is only when the weather spoils crops or the ground
sickens that widespread sacrifices are required.''

``And the Sahelians are said to have the finest rituals in Praes,''
Hakram gravelled. ``Fewer deaths required and the ground is healed
longer.''

Akua laughed, the motion pleasing to watch in the conservatively cut but
tightly fitting blue and orange dress she'd elected to wear as her form.
As had become her habit she wore no jewels, even her black and orange
cloak kept closed by a simple iron brooch.

``You can simply ask, Adjutant,'' she said. ``It is true enough my kin's
ritual rites are superior, though the mages of Kahtan yet make our
attempts to manipulate the weather look like the work of fumbling
children. My ancestors parlayed their advantage into expanded influence:
we could usually afford to spare sacrifices as gifts, which in turn
spared lords the costs of relying on the Tower instead.''

As a young girl I would have been sickened to the bone by the thought of
human sacrifice, and in truth part of me still was. Akua was talking
about trading people like cattle -- and the laws that restricted that
fate to criminals only were rather recent to Praes -- and consigning
them to ugly deaths so magic could be squeezed out of their lifeblood.
I'd sent too many people into the grinding gears of wars to be able to
speak on that without the hypocrisy choking me, though. How many people
would a Praesi lord kill like that, in a lifetime's span? A hundred,
three hundred? I'd spent more of my people on skirmishes leading up to
battles without batting an eye.

I could tell myself it was soldiers I'd spent and I'd not opened their
throats like lambs headed for the spit, but that was just dressing up
the truth. And so I stayed silent, did not allow my lips to curl in
disgust. If a practice offended me, I ought to either act to end it or
shut up. Empty condemnations served no purpose but patting yourself on
the back. Establishing a solid grain trade between Praes and Callow
would do more to kill the practice than the most convincing sermon in
the history of sermons, and I fully intended on securing that by treaty
before I left the Empire. Among other things. Praes had been left to
moulder for too long. That mess didn't look like it was going to fix
itself, so all that was left was getting my hands dirty.

``Horrid,'' Vivienne flatly replied. ``Though it seems to have bought
loyalty. My Jacks believe none of High Lord Sargon's vassals have turned
on him.''

``Not openly, anyway,'' I muttered.

``Scribe was in agreement, before you sent her away with Archer,''
Hakram reminded me.

``Scribe lost control of the Eyes in the empire to Ime,'' I said.
``She's got people around here, but she's not all-seeing.''

The Webweaver, like every other kind of spider, needed a web to crawl
on.

``In the wake of my mother's death and the financial difficulties that
preceded it, I expect the Tower's spymistress to have sunk deep hooks in
the region,'' Akua sighed. ``My cousin proved to be a fine enough lord,
but his seat was shattered and he had to spend time to consolidate
power. The Eyes will not have missed the opportunity.''

We weren't blind in the region, far from it, but it couldn't be denied
the opposition had better eyes on most everything. That was fine: I'd
gotten used to fighting that sort of war. The trick was to hit hard and
move quicker than the enemy could follow.

``The real question is how many of his vassals will bring their armies
if he calls,'' I said. ``Only a third of his personal forces are with
High Marshal Nim's field army, but that doesn't make what he's got here
a large force. He'll need his lords if he wants to do more than hide
behind his walls.''

We believed Sargon Sahelian to have forces in the area of five thousand
soldiers in the city and its outskirts, which in most cases would have
been a pittance compared to the sixteen thousand Callowans and
auxiliaries I'd brought with me. The trouble was that this wasn't a
petty border fort, it was Wolof. If we tried to take that city by force
our numbers might genuinely not be enough. High Seats were always full
of nasty surprises, and this one would be worse than most.

``If it comes that, we'll have to take the city before they get here,''
Vivienne said.

``I do not recommend trying the Sererian Walls,'' Akua frankly replied.
``Repairing their wards will have been my cousin's utmost priority after
his ascension, it will be long done. His mages will hammer away at any
force we send from behind their protection.''

``Juniper doesn't believe we can take the city in fewer than six
months,'' Hakram noted. ``Even if we seize the fortress in the northern
hills and cut off the aqueduct there, there are too many wells inside
the walls. We would be betting on food running out instead of water if
it comes to a siege.''

Which would be quite the gamble, considering we had no supply lines of
our own. We might end up hungry before the enemy did. My army was
carrying its foodstuff with it, in the Legion manner, but aside from the
rare convoy through the Twilight Ways there wouldn't be more coming. If
we'd emerged further south, closer to the Blessed Isle, it might have
been possible to arrange a supply line out of Callow. I'd chosen
otherwise, though. First because down south was exactly where Malicia
and Sepulchral wanted us, but also because I didn't want to set up that
supply line in the first place. I couldn't really afford to, when I
needed all that food and people headed west instead for the greater war
still being waged there.

So instead we'd emptied granaries and grabbed everything we could before
moving out east. In practice we had about six month's worth of food with
us, though with the planned convoys we would \emph{maybe} manage to
stretch that to seven in a pinch. That would be enough if everything
went according to plan, which pretty much meant it wasn't enough. So the
Hellhound and I had gotten\ldots{} inventive.

``We don't actually need to take the city,'' I said. ``It's not what
we're after here. There's going to be a battle before this campaign is
over, but it won't be in Wolof unless something goes catastrophically
wrong. We're here to \emph{rob} Sargon Sahelian, not kill him.''

Funny thing about Wolof, these days: it was probably the only High Seat
in the whole of Praes that had a significant food surplus. After its
losses during the war of succession its population had been massively
lowered while its farmland remained largely untouched, and it'd kept
trading heavily with Callow until relations broke. Throw in that the
field force it'd had to feed had been relatively small -- by virtue of
large chunks of the Sahelian household troops either dying at Second
Liesse or when the Fourteenth stormed the city -- and the city was
currently the Wasteland's undisputed queen when it came to the fullness
of her granaries.

I wanted that grain to feed my army, so naturally I was going to trick a
High Lord of Praes out of it.

``Banners are approaching,'' Vivienne sharply said.

I followed her gaze, eye narrowing as I found what she meant. Riders,
maybe twenty of them, and a half dozen banners between them. I murmured
a short prayer to the Crows before drawing on Night, a sluggish handful
of power answering my will after a moment. I sharpened my eyesight with
it, wasting not a drop, and studied the approaching men. The golden lion
of the Sahelians flew highest, standing out starkly on the elaborate
banner of that line: an oval filled with curved swaths of black and red,
stripes of small white teeth cutting through looking outwards. I saw a
blue stork and purple dog flying lower, while the other banners were
entirely patterning of colour.

``The stork and dog are the Bassa and the Chenoi,'' Akua explained after
I shared. ``The two closest houses to the east. They must have already
had a presence in the city when we arrived.''

So Sargon was sending us a message that he wasn't standing alone. I
rather admired how quickly he'd gotten over the surprise of our arrival,
considering my army had begun moving out of the gates south of Wolof
barely an hour before dawn and it wasn't even noon. In a few hours he'd
put together enough of a plan to feel comfortable sending an embassy to
me, which I took as a healthy reminder that underestimating anyone who'd
been able to claim and keep a High Seat of Praes was a good way to end
up dead. I watched the riders approached and smiled, rolling my shoulder
as if to limber it.

``Finally,'' I said. ``Let's go see what your cousin has to say, Akua.''

---

I waited for them at the top of the shallowest slope, easy to see from a
distance.

Hakram and Vivienne stood at my right, Akua at my left and around us the
Order of Broken Bells sat the saddle in utter silence. Like statues
armoured in shining steel, lances raised like a whispered promise of
violence. The envoys dismounted at the bottom of the hill. Not all of
them, though, only three: two men and a woman, all Soninke and no older
than thirty. Akua leaned closed to whisper in my ear.

``The man in the centre is Chikodi Sahelian,'' she said. ``He is my
cousin twice removed, but more closely related to Sargon. They were at
odds as children.''

I inclined my head in thanks, her breath still warm against my cheek.
The other two were nobles too, going by the golden eyes, so at a guess
I'd say they were from the Bassa and the Chenoi. The rest of the
delegation stayed mounted like my knights, their horses well-disciplined
and their colourful scale armour of fine make. Career soldiers, those,
career killers. That was fine. I had those too, and mine were better.
Chikodi Sahelian, a strikingly good-looking man almost as tall as
Hakram, took the lead of his party and rose halfway up the slope before
offering a perfect courtly bow.

``This one humbly greets you, Queen of Callow,'' the noble said.

Ugh. I glanced at Akua, who looked amused. She'd only ever used formal
Praesi diplomatic language with me the once and it'd been mostly to mock
me, something I found myself belatedly grateful for. Not the mockery,
the other thing. If he stuck to that the whole time this was going to be
irritating.

``So, out of curiosity,'' I said, allowing a Laure drawl to slip into my
voice. ``What is it you \emph{did} that made you so eminently expendable
you got picked?''

Chikodi's face blanked. Ah, how nostalgic. As if him aggressively not
giving me a reaction wasn't already one.

``This one begs your pardon, mighty one,'' Chikodi calmly said, ``for he
does not understand your meaning.''

``He used to shove Sargon down the stairs in the Western Palace,'' Akua
noted. ``And spill ink on his parchments just before we had assignments
due. There was also enmity between their fathers over the position of
seneschal of Sinka, I believe.''

``And Sargon sent him here over that, knowing there was a decent chance
I'd just crack open his skull and rip out whatever I wanted to know?''

Chikodi's face did not change, though a slight tremor went up his leg.
Akua elegantly shrugged.

``We are \emph{Sahelians}, dearest,'' she reminded me.

``Cold,'' I replied, not without appreciation.

Small slights and all that. I'd never been one to mind a bit of petty
retribution.

``Gods Below,'' Chikodi hoarsely said. ``It is true. You really are Lady
Akua returned, as the stories said.''

The woman at his side, soft-skinned but sharp-eyed, let out a small hiss
of surprise. I glanced at her hand and found a few fading motes of magic
there, reluctantly impressed she'd been able to use even a minor spell
without my noticing.

``And unbound,'' she said. ``A shade, yet unbound.''

The conversation might have unravelled further, if someone hadn't
stepped in.

``You used a spell on one of us under truce banner,'' Vivienne said,
tone even.

All three of them froze. It wasn't necessarily a breach of truce terms
to do as much, in truth, but it was\ldots{} toeing a line.

``Not on any of you, not directly,'' the woman began, but I interrupted
with a snort.

``What an auspicious start,'' I said. ``Fine, I'll let this one go.''

She looked relieved for a moment, before smiling and bowing and thanks.

``Break your fingers,'' I casually said. ``Five of them. Same hand.''

The smile went away. A moment of silence passed, all eyes on me. I
cocked an eyebrow.

``Well?'' I asked.

Golden eyes sought me out and found not a speck of sympathy. You
couldn't let Wasteland nobles get one of you, not even a small thing.
And you could never just let it go without answer -- they'd lose all
respect for you immediately, see you as someone that could be crossed
with impunity. The fingers would heal easy enough, she might even be
able to do it herself if she was a fine enough mage. It was the pain
that was the price I was asking. The pain and the humiliation. She
looked through the rest of us and found no purchase, no willing
intercessor, and her face stilled.

``As you say, Black Queen,'' the mage replied.

There was a sharp crack, as she began with her thumb and swallowed a
scream. Granting her no further attention, I moved my gaze to a shaken
Chikodi.

``You've got my attention,'' I said. ``What does High Lord Sargon
want?''

``The High Lord desires only peace and friendship, mighty one,'' Chikodi
said. ``And shares that this is the will of Her Dread Majesty herself,
not merely his own wish.''

``Huh,'' I replied, unimpressed. ``That's quite polite of you, really,
but I happen to have come over for a spot of war. Whether or not that
involves me sacking your city and putting every Sahelian not in my
service to the sword is up to Sargon, but I'll be honest -- we're not
looking good at the moment.''

It was surprisingly cathartic to threaten Praesi nobility like this, I
found. I really should do it more often.

``The Sererian Walls have never fallen,'' Chikodi evenly said. ``This
would be-''

``They fell to the Legions, when your lord was raised,'' Adjutant
interrupted.

Anger flickered on the nobleman's face, the most visible reaction so
far. It took me a heartbeat to understand why he would likely be more
offended at Hakram interrupting than the rest of us, and my fingers
tightened around my staff when I did. Ah, Praesi. The remembrance of why
I'd despised so many of them as young girl had begun to fade but here
they were, so kindly restoring it for me.

``They have never fallen when the city was not at war with itself,''
Chikodi curtly said.

``Not quite as impressive a boast,'' I noted. ``All right, this is
beginning to turn into a waste of my time. What exactly is it that
Sargon's offering as terms so I don't torch his home to teach the Tower
a lesson?''

Chikodi's eyes moved to Akua, but she only faintly smiled. She had asked
no mercy of me when it came to Wolof or her kin. I was still uncertain
whether that was before she did not believe it would be needed or
because she did not believe it deserved. I glanced at the mage, who had
finished breaking her fingers, and coldly smiled. She flinched.

``High Lord Sargon requests nothing of you, mighty one,'' Chikodi said.
``He only offers tokens of his friendship and esteem, as well as his
help to achieve your intent in these lands.''

``So a bribe,'' I said, rolling my eye. ``Disappointing. Give the
numbers on offer to Adjutant, I've been bored enough for a day.''

I didn't even bother to give goodbyes before turning my back on him,
limping away. It was hard to see properly under the helms so I couldn't
be sure, but what little I could glimpse told me that more than a few of
my knights were grinning like sharks under their helmet. For all that
they looked dignified, they must have been enjoying seeing Praes being
under the boot after keeping it on our throat for over half my life.
Vivienne fell in at my side, abandoning the talks just as indifferently.
We'd never had any intention of negotiating with the first envoy the
High Lord sent us.

``We've given enough slights that Sargon should be livid when he
hears,'' Vivienne said.

Which was good, because right now we wanted him angry.

``He's a Sahelian,'' I reluctantly said. ``He won't be that easy to
bait.''

If he were, he'd be dead by now. I had little good to say of the way
Praesi highborn raised their own, but I'd not deny that their methods
were cruelly effective at weeding out those who could easily be
manipulated.

``That's not necessarily a bad thing, Catherine. I know Juniper wants
him goaded into an attack, but we don't need that to get what we want,''
Vivienne said. ``So long as he believes you meant what you said, that we
came for Wolof to burn out Malicia's allies, we have our foot in the
door.''

That had been the point of mistreating and mocking the delegation so
much, after all: getting across the impression that was utterly
uninterested in talks. Making sport of envoys was the sort of thing a
half-mad warlord might do, if she really had come here to sack the city
so that Malicia would lose her strongest northern supporter. Why bother
to keep to the niceties when you were talking to torch fodder? What
Juniper had wanted out of this was more military in nature. She was
hoping the insults would either anger Sargon enough to risk a night
attack on our camp or make him desperate enough that he resorted to one
anyway to improve his bargaining position.

We'd be waiting for him if he did.

``If we catch him out while he's trying a sortie and wipe the attacking
force, it only strengthens our hand,'' I said.

The first part of robbing someone was putting their knife at their
throat. People were disinclined to part with gold and goods unless you
made it clear they had something a lot more precious to lose. It was why
the Army of Callow had crossed into Creation so early: I wanted our
fortified camp built, finished with some time to spare for the men to
rest. My soldiers wouldn't be getting a full night's sleep: under cover
of dark, we would be going on the offensive.

``So long as we come out on top of that skirmish,'' Vivienne said. ``If
we lose, it's us who's pushed on the backfoot.''

``Best we don't lose, then,'' I simply said.

Wasn't that always the way? Some of my officers still insisted that the
Battle of Hainaut had been a victory, but I knew better. In a strategic
sense, the battle had brought us to the ragged edge: a major defeat
either here in Praes or on any Proceran front was now all it took for
the house of cards to come tumbling down on our heads. Besides, there
was another plan behind all this that my friend didn't know. One I was
keeping closer to my chest: it had not been a mistake that Akua was
there for the envoys to see, so verifiably unbound. I was dangling bait
for someone to catch.

``More than you know,'' Vivienne said. ``I got word from Archer before
joining you with the delegation.''

My limping steps stuttered to a stop.

``And?'' I asked.

``They'll be here tonight,'' the blue-eyed princess said. ``I expect
losing a fight while they're watching would rather undermine our cause,
so caution is in order.''

I grinned. Splendid timing, this. A little too splendid to be natural,
in this case it was no accident: I'd sent Archer and Scribe ahead
counting on `coincidence' ensuring they came back at the right time. I'd
not yet known what the right time would be, but what did that matter?
The day didn't matter, so long as I knew where the step was in the
dance. I knew my grin had turned a tad savage, but I didn't mind. This
had been overdue. Malicia had had herself a grand old time these last
few years, lighting fires in all our backyards while she rode out the
messes she caused hidden in the Tower. Safely away from the fray.

It was time I returned the favour and started lighting fires of my own.