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The transparent bubble around me was solid, as I found out with a swift strike of what must have been at least my fifteenth sword of the day. I was pretty sure the one made out of goblin steel was still with the Spellblade, since I’d never actually picked it up. Over the span of a single heartbeat the Praesi delegation’s entire body language had shifted. Where before the illusion had been the centre of their attention, they now all faced the taller of the two men wearing ceremonial armour. I’d expected another illusion to break and Malicia’s flesh puppet to be revealed but then the stranger smiled and I realized I was already looking at it. Shit, she’d never said she was limited to using women as puppets had she?

“Catherine,” the Empress greeted me in a pleasant baritone. “You’ve made quite the entrance.”

I coughed.

“Would you believe I was just cleaning my sword and my hand slipped?” I tried.

Not so much as a twitch from anyone. Tough crowd.

“Worth a shot,” I shrugged.

“So much for the cunning Black Queen,” a robe-clad man sneered.

From the voice, it was the one called Galadan. His interlocutor had pointedly not used a noble titled when bickering with him, so odds were he was just a talented practitioner snatched young and groomed by one of the powerful houses.

“Galadan, was it?” I said slowly, lips quirking as the name echoed with the taste of Winter. “I’ll remember that.”

There were days where my reputation was like a stone around my neck, making what should have been the simplest matters a brutal grind where my best intentions were turned to dross no matter what I tried. But there were days, as well, where the balance swung the other way. I was standing alone and surrounded, bound by a ward I’d wager had been crafted specifically to deal with me, and I had nothing left to bare at the man but teeth. Galadan still flinched. Malicia chuckled lightly at the sight.

“One does not lightly taunt a tiger, even caged,” she chided her subordinate. “There is no need for uncouthness, Queen in Callow. Threats this early in the conversation strike me as in poor taste.”

I should go alone with the beat, of course, dance that highborn dance of manners and double-speak and bladed implications. But we’d done that for a year now, the both of us, and the more I learned about what she’d been up all the whole to the more I realized how deeply I’d been played. She’d let me bleed my kingdom, my armies, my people against her enemies while she plotted to unleash the Dead King. I would not condemn her for desperation, not when it had driven me to the same madness, but there had been calculation behind her despair. She would let the demon out of the box only when Callow had seen the wilfulness beaten out of it by the Tenth Crusade, and not a moment before. It’d make me a hypocrite to talk about the wickedness of making pact with the Hidden Horror, but I was not unreasonable in the fury I felt at the knowledge that she’d intended to bleed me out for her advantage.

I spat to the side.

“You know me,” I grinned toothily. “Proper savage, I am. That’s how they raise us in the provinces.”

Malicia sighed.

“There is no need for such antagonism,” she said. “You have attempted to murder me, certainly, but that is a small thing. Expected, in many ways. We had a confluence of interests at the last hour of Liesse, and may have one currently as well. It is neither of us that most benefits from this squabble.”

“You funded Liesse,” I replied calmly. “Enabled it. You were, to use that most damning word, complicit.”

“And yet,” the Dread Empress of Praes said, “when presented with the finished weapon you agreed with me on the necessity of its existence. Our present situation is not so different.”

I had come to regret it, over the months that followed that nightmare, that I had even for a moment agreed with Malicia. That I’d been able to set aside the pile of bodies the doomsday fortress had been raised from for the golden lie of the peace it might be able to force. I’d often thought of pragmatism as the highest of all virtues, since I’d become the Squire. So many time I’d crossed blades with heroes and villains who were so wrapped up in what they might be able to make of the world that they were unwilling to face the reality of what it was. But I’d learned. It was a virtue, when properly used, but to embrace it at the exclusion of all else was to become Black. Cunning, victorious and brutally efficient. Dead inside too, though, more means than man. The kind of person that brought only ruin wherever they went.

“And so the devil complains the other devil is tricking us both,” I laughed. “Quite the assertion, when you’ve already escalated the offer beyond what either of us can afford.”

“The Principate is an existential threat to us both,” the Empress said. “That is fact, not speculation. So long as Procer is not dismantled, even victory tomorrow would only result in the same war erupting anew in twenty years. You are quite aware of this, or you would not have requested signatory status with the Grand Alliance.”

“Hasenbach isn’t the one whose ships are burning your coasts,” I pointed out. “And Levant’s on the march. Bit more to this than the First Prince having a go at the East.”

“Ashur will seek separate peace the moment the Grand Alliance collapses,” Malicia patiently said. “It will be costly to settle, but the Empire is the wealthiest it has been in several generations. The Dominion is willing to fight under the cross, but to defend Procer? Even if they are cajoled into it and somehow manage victory, they will have no stomach for pressing with another war after turning back the Dead King.”

“It’s an interesting sell that you’re making between the lines,” I noted. “Instead of your shield protecting the western flank with the Principate, you’re trying to talk me into being the same for your western flank with the Dead King. What a favour you’re granting me. I have to praise the audacity, if nothing else.”

“Let us not quibble over details,” Malicia flatly said. “You meant to release him yourself. If betrayal in the terms is your worry, I am willing to grant you the right to read the final treaties and sit at the signing.”

“I meant to loose him only on the northernmost edges of Procer,” I sharply replied. “Where the damage inflicted could be kept to a strict minimum and he’d have to defend narrow beachheads against the entire Tenth Crusade. You, on the other hand, are handing him almost a third of the continent’s most densely populated farmland on a silver platter. I don’t care how good your binding oaths are, if he manages to swallow that big a prize the rest of Calernia is fucked. Including me, including you. You can’t possibly be so desperate you can’t see that.”

“There is quite the difference between recognizing someone’s rights to territory and the other party being able to seize it,” the Empress said. “Some principalities will fall, I expect. Not enough. And what remains of Procer will be embroiled in permanent bloody warfare to the north, a grind on the resources of both participants.”

“See, I would have bought that before I saw Keter with my own eyes,” I told her. “Saw the kind of tools the Dead King has at his disposal. I’m telling you, and Gods I would love it if you actually took me to my word for once, he has a fucking legion of monsters to unleash. He’s been sitting pretty on this for millennia, Malicia, picking up every strong Named he came across and adding them to his arsenal. Procer can barely handle me, and that’s with the hand of the Heavens so far up their asses you can see the fingers wiggling between the teeth. They are not capable of handling what he’ll send marching.”

“Evil,” the Empress replied serenely, “does not win wars. That is a law of nature, true as sunrise or the moving of the tides. You have inherited Amadeus’ most dangerous delusion in believing otherwise. He could empty all the Howling Hells and it would not matter one bit. The only way to eke out a victory, Catherine, is not to fight.”

“And how’s that been working out for you?” I harshly asked.

“My armies are intact,” Malicia smiled. “I have avoided loss of any significant industry or resources and maintained my hold on all my core territories. Your need to war with every foe in sight, on the other hand, has broken your only host, brought several outlying regions of Callow to the brink of rebellion and left you exceedingly vulnerable to attack from every single other state on the continent.”

“You know,” I mused, “we usually get that speech from the west instead of the east. Oh, Callow’s on fire but my lands are fine. You must be a bunch of blunderers. Forgetting, of course, that the only reason the princes of Procer aren’t bickering over who gets the nicer parts of your fucking capital is that my people bled at the borders to drive them back.”

“You expect my sympathy for the costs of defending your own lands?” the Empress said, tone mildly sardonic.

“You know,” I said, “that’s fair. It really is. It’s not like my armies gives a damn about the Wasteland. But then you don’t get to parade the success of your masterful ‘strategy’ either, Malicia, when the only thing that makes it work is that my kingdom’s in the way of an invasion. You haven’t played everyone like a fiddle. You didn’t raise a godsdamned hand even when the Ashurans started sacking your cities. All you did was read a fucking map and take a bet on human nature.”

She laughed in my face, an older man’s rich and riotous laughter.

“Indeed, I truly am a fool for having achieved all my desired outcomes without any true cost to myself,” she said. “However will I live this down?”

“No cost?” I said. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Your little episode in Liesse cost you quite a bit, didn’t it? More than half the Legions. Your finest generals, and probably the person dearest to you in the world. All of Callow, too. How’s it feel, Alaya, to join the roster of empresses who pissed away a kingdom out of pride?”

The flesh puppet turned dark eyes on me.

“One of your better attempts,” she noted. “Given two or three decades, you might survive a month at court without someone cleaning up behind you. Evidently, you are disinclined to cooperate even when it is to our common advantage. Let us part ways, then.”

I went for Winter again. Still just out of the reach of my fingertips. The harder I set my will to it, though, the more I felt like there might be some give. Was the ward pitting willpower against willpower? There were four warlocks keeping this going that I could see, and Wasteland mages were taught from the cradle that Creation was theirs to master. That didn’t breed weak wills, though sometimes brittle ones. I might be able to pull that off, given long enough, but it wasn’t a certainty. And I’d be up to my neck in Sentinels before then. I shifted my stance, wrist slowly rotating as I flicked the last of the blood off my sword.

“This the part where you have your little toy soldiers try me?” I casually said. “Should be interesting to see if they can kill me.”

“You are a skilled swordswoman,” a Taghreb mage snorted. “Yet not so skilled as that.”

“You mistake me,” I smiled. “Even if your pack of silent hounds hacks me to pieces, will I actually die?”

That gave them pause.

“Lost half my face and torso, not even an hour ago,” I said. “A Named elf did that with one of the dangerous aspects I’ve ever seen. You think you can swing harder than that? I’m genuinely curious, what do you have to throw at me that’ll keep me down for the count?”

“Cold iron,” Galadan hissed.

I snorted.

“That’s cute,” I said. “My own crown is made of that, you mouthy second-rater. But, Hells, give it a shot. It’s not like my way to the throne hasn’t been paved by the bodies of Wastelanders who just knew they had my number.”

I straightened, gaze sweeping across the Praesi delegation.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” I said with a savage grin, “which brave soul wants to be the first example I make today?”

Silence was my answer, and when I inhaled the fear that had swelled up under their calm faces I could not be sure whether it was me or Winter that delighted in it. The spell was broken by a slow clap. Malicia’s simulacrum was smiling.

“You truly do have a talent for this,” she said. “Beyond even what you were taught. Still, you have ever been slow to learn. Did I not tell you, Catherine? To win, it is best not to fight at all.”

The puppet glanced at her subordinates.

“The ward anchors will remain here,” she said. “The rest of us will proceed to the Hall of the Dead and resume negotiation.”

The man’s face turned to me, and inclined Malicia inclined his head by a fraction.

“A good day to you, Black Queen,” she said. “May you survive the consequences of what you have wrought.”

The smiled turned mirthless.

“After all,” she finished, “I still have a use for you.”

Oooh, that’d been cold. Had to grant her the due for that, and I knew cold better than most. I gathered my will and smashed it against the ward like a hammer, but the give wasn’t nearly strong enough. If she managed to get out of here, this was done. And like she’d said, Neshamah would be displeased. Or perhaps disappointed, which seemed like a much more dangerous state of affairs. I couldn’t reach my mantle, and the bubble might as well have been stone. Stone before I’d gotten said mantle, anyway, it was a lot less trouble these days. I still had knives up my sleeves, thanks to Pickler’s cunning little contraptions, but if my sword couldn’t cut it against the bubble neither would they. The Praesi gathered to move out, the Sentinels making a protective ring around the remaining delegates and the Empress. My fingers clenched. I had no weapon, no power that would work until it was too late. Well, except my fucking ‘invisible crossbow’, thank you Past Catherine. Wait, yes, my invisible crossbow. I didn’t physically have one – I’d checked earlier, patted myself down – but it might be a metaphor. Or maybe the sight of me making an ass of myself was a signal for Archer to start shooting, which seemed a lot more likely.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” I called out.

The Empress turned.

“And why is that?” she said.

Ah, humouring me. Nearly always a mistake.

“I’ll have to kill you with my secret weapon,” I replied.

“Is that so?” she said.

“Evidently,” I drawled, “you are disinclined to cooperate. Let us part ways, then.”

I brought up my invisible crossbow and fired it right into her throat.

At which point nothing happened.

“I was expecting the Archer to ambush us,” Malicia said after a moment.

“Wards prepared?” I asked.

“Several,” she replied.

“The plan had a few kinks to work out,” I admitted.

If I’d been more prone to assigning sentimentality to the Empress , I would have believed her to be somewhat embarrassed on my behalf. Well, it’d make two of us. At least years of Indrani’s company had more or less made me immune to shame and public embarrassment. Mercifully, the Dread Empress of Praes set out again without taking a moment out of her day to mock me. All right then, back to forcing my way through the ward and then having a spot of diplomatic murder. I pressed my will against the bubble again, and kept the pressure up. I was gaining ground, inch by inch, but it was taking too godsdamned long.

The arrow took Galadan right in the knee.

The mage fell with a scream as my eyes widened in surprise. Had there been some sort of protective enchantment on him, like there’d been on the Exiled Prince? Why else would Archer aim for the knee? Unless…

“Oh, fucking Hells,” I sighed. “She’s drunk, isn’t she?”

Had she seriously been so wasted she’d missed both the signal and her mark? Gods, I didn’t even know Named could get that drunk.

“Fighting retreat,” Malicia ordered, tone perfectly even.

“Archer,” I yelled. “The mages around me. Ignore the Empress.”

I found fear in the eye of the warlock closest to me when I met them, and redoubled my efforts to break through. Except that no other arrow came. Was this a plan of some sort? Befuddlement distracted me long enough I lost a few inches to the mages, and I threw myself back into it with gritted teeth. She and I would have a talk about this, when – the second arrow clipped the shoulder of a mage to the side of the bubble, drawing blood and a scream but nothing else. I gained back the inches I’d lost, but that was all. Gods, how drunk was she? No, she’d have burned it out of her body by now with her Name. Indrani might capricious, but she was also incredibly vain about her marksmanship. After missing her first shot she’d have sobered herself up. I came to the conclusion a heartbeat before the Empress announced it out loud to her escorts. This had never been Archer. This was Thief who’d stolen a bow and arrows at some point, and the shots were missing because no one had ever taught her to use the godsdamned thing properly.

“Thief, just stab the bastards,” I yelled angrily.

Her ruse – passing for Archer – had slowed down the Praesi advance some but not nearly enough. She should have gone for the mages since the start, though charitably I’d assume she’d been trying to make time for me to break out of the bubble. I slammed my will against the ward, to no avail. This was infuriating. If I’d still had an aspect I could have ripped through that like wet parchment. But with the mantle’s power had come the mantle’s weaknesses. Although, I’d learned necromancy when I was still… No, my tie to Zombie still existed but it was muted. I couldn’t control her through it. Neither could I summon the arguably more dangerous dead thing at my beck and call, Akua Sahelian. It was like the bubble was shutting me out of Winter and essentially everything outside of the bubble itself. I was pretty sure I could still manipulate what was in here, but my body couldn’t shift without Winter to handle the changes and, and I still had a bit of Winter in here didn’t I? I glanced down at my sword. I’d gone through over a dozen of those fighting the Skein, just making another one out of ice every time the last one shattered. It’d become so natural I barely ever thought of it anymore. I grimaced. Didn’t really help, though. I could make an ice javelin out of that, but that was no better than a sword and I doubted anything aside from my domain would put a hole in the ward.

Thief flickered into sight, stabbing into the back of the man whose eyes I’d met earlier, but even though she drew blood a streak of lighting caught her in the side and smashed her to the ground. An illusion broke, and a fifth spellcaster flicked her wrist as she whispered in the mage tongue. The lightning kept roiling and Vivienne screamed as she twisted on the ground.

“Flee,” I hissed. “Go.”

Except she couldn’t, and I didn’t have the tools to… My fingers clenched. I gathered my will, sent it into my sword and broke it apart. I ripped from the ice the stuff of Winter, and from it wove one of the few things that never left my body. A small dark whistle, pulsing with power not my own. Power I’d stolen from a hated foe. Bringing it to my cold lips, I blew out and the power vanished. It broke into fine powder. Not a sound had been made. It wasn’t that kind of whistle. It wasn’t that kind of call.

“She’s summoning something,” the sorceress that still poured lightning into Vivienne called out.

“We need every single one of us,” the man who’d been stabbed replied in Mtethwa. “She’s a monster.”

The blade went through the back of his head, coming out of his month in a downpour of blood. Larat clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

“Now now, man-thing,” he chided. “That’s just no way to speak about your superiors.”

The rest of the Wild Hunt tore out of Arcadia behind him, and with a wild scream I finally shattered the ward. Finally.

My turn.