" 'Huh' is all you ever say. Huh. Oi, laddie, see that hill there?"

Sullen saw it, all right: the camp backed into and partially up the base of a foreboding mountain, and right before the climb got really bad and the tents fell away was a tall spit of brown grass. Highest point around, short of climbing the mountain or one of the two ridges that came down like walls on either side of the camp, and without need for further clarification he tramped toward it as the Lark's Tongue speared the setting sun.

"There we are," said Grandfather when Sullen finally topped the hill, a crude symbol of stones at his feet and the whole world spread out beyond them. "That's something to see. Your Immaculate girl is in for it now!"

That she was. From down in the camp they could only see the ridgeline of the grassy rise across the low valley, but up here the foothills looked nearly as flat as the plains they melted into, and damned if the whole countryside didn't look like it had broken out in an angry rash. The Imperial camp wasn't twice as big as that of the Cobalts, but it was close. And from those Crimson tents to the valley floor it couldn't have been much more than an hour's march; from the valley floor to the first Cobalt tent was less than half that.

"Don't look good, does it?" said Sullen sadly. Their time was nearly out; as soon as tomorrow the battle could start, and what the hells would they do then? More specifically, what would Sullen do with Grandfather? He couldn't expect the old man to understand his need to fight in a war that they were no part of, nor could he leave Grandfather behind and go fight on his own-if he fell, what would happen to a Horned Wolf who hadn't walked on his own in over a decade? After all they'd been through, it looked like they might have squandered their only chance to talk to Maroto the day before, and now the battle might come before they could try again. Which meant they had to set out into the mountains that very night if they wanted to avoid a war between Outlanders, but it also meant leaving behind his uncle without giving him a chance to set things right... and leaving behind Ji-hyeon, which almost seemed worse. "Don't look good at all."

"Good?" Grandfather snorted. "Looks ruddy great, laddie. If I'd known they remembered how to fight a real war out here, I would've followed Maroto the first time he left the Savannahs."

"Yeah?" Sullen didn't think he'd ever heard Grandfather call his son by that name.

"Yeah," said Grandfather, "I'd near given up on the notion, but looks like there's still hope for me makin' it into Old Black's Meadhall. If that many Imperial curs can't send me to the ancestors, then I reckon I might have to reconsider my whole mortality."

"You mean you want us to pledge our arms to the Cobalt Company?" said Sullen, half relieved to have the matter sorted in the best way possible, but only half, mind. He still hadn't seen Ji-hyeon since Zosia had brought the girl's lover back to her-as if Sullen needed more reason to be sore about the one called Cold Cobalt-and the notion that he now had an excuse to visit the general made him almost as happy as it did skittish.

"If that's what it takes to coax a smile out of you," said Grandfather, rapping his knuckles into Sullen's hair. "If the two sides are the Imperial dogs who dragged their Chain clear up to the Savannahs or anyone ruddy else, I'll raise my spear beside anyone ruddy else. Besides, that white witch wants us to leave, which is all the more reason to stay."

"Hoartrap?" Sullen gulped. If Grandfather found out- "You did a lively dance keeping that from me, Sullen, though why you felt the urge I'll never guess. You think I'd be so ired over his bein' part of the crew that I'd wriggle after him on my belly, snapping at his ankles?" Grandfather's fingers burrowed through the hair that had caught his hand and scratched affectionately at Sullen's scalp. "Well, I suppose I might have, once upon a time. But he came by one of those evenings you were at your ease with that blue-haired... young lady. We had a talk, he and me, and we had a couple more since."

"Damn, Fa," said Sullen, impressed as ever with his grandfather's coolness. "You've known this whole time? I thought I was slick about it."

"Slick as pinesap."

"Huh. So what'd you talk about?"

"Never you mind," grumbled Grandfather. "You've kept enough of your secrets; I'm entitled to a few of my own. The relevant point is he wants us both gone, wants it in a bad way, which is why I've decided to stick around. I scare, the same as any mortal, but I don't scare by the likes of him. Now shake a paw, it's getting on in the day, and if we might die tomorrow I aim to get a good night's sleep first."

Even with the hardest battle of her life within spitting distance, Ji-hyeon couldn't help grinning as the four of them sat around the table in her tent. It was the first time in nearly a year that they had all sat together, sipping kaldi and passing a waterpipe, and for as much as the world had changed, they had not. Sure, she picked up more on minor frictions, like the glares Keun-ju would launch through his veil at Fennec or the saucy winks Fennec would fire back, or Choi's skepticism about both of her other guards, but those things had always been there, just swimming too deep for her to catch.

"Are you sure you wouldn't have the rest of your council in here for this?" said Fennec, nodding down at the map. "Just to make sure all qualified heads have a chance to take it in?"

"If she were worried about qualified heads, Brother Mikal, she wouldn't very well have you in here, would she?" said Keun-ju, sipping his kaldi.

"I've given a lot more people in this camp a lot more cause to wish me ill, Keun-ju, so I wouldn't make such a production about it," said Fennec. "Ji-hyeon seems to have gotten over it, so-"

"Enough barking," said Choi, which was enough of a burn coming from her to quiet them down. "Our general offers us paramount honor. Who else but her bodyguard need know her every movement?"

"I've done this enough times to know it's not as simple as we three keeping an eye on her," said Fennec, but he'd thankfully dropped some of the snide. "In a battle this big, if the general insists on leading from the field-which I still advise against, protective devil or no-the other captains need to know where to find her. An effective army is a coherent army, and plans we've spent a hundred hours perfecting may well fall apart in the first hundred heartbeats of the fight. If that happens we will need the command to regroup, and to do that the general cannot penetrate too deep into the front, and the other officers must have some idea of where to find her. Does that make sense?"

"If you bleating peacocks had let me speak, I would have told you that the rest of the officers have already gone over the plan. Several times, in fact." Ji-hyeon yawned, the gurgling pipe having counteracted the kaldi. "The Crimson agreed to meet us at noon, so I want everyone ready by dawn. No, make it an hour before light, just to be on the safe side. For now I think we'd all better assume this is our last night on the Star, and do some things we'll regret if we live out the morrow."

Fennec rolled his eyes, Keun-ju coughed and turned his face away, and Choi just looked befuddled. The more things change... However tomorrow's battle shook out, Ji-hyeon was glad these three were here to fight beside her, just as they had that fateful night of the Autumn Festival when she had found her calling.

"General," one of her tent guards called in. "Masters Ruthless and Sullen request an audience."

"Send them in!" Ji-hyeon realized she'd practically chirped it, and rubbed at her eyes in exaggerated fatigue to cover a blush of her own.

"Isn't the hour rather late to be meeting common mercenaries?" asked Keun-ju, and she'd been away from him so long Ji-hyeon couldn't tell if he was teasing her or actually jealous.

"Oh, I don't know," said Fennec, smirking at Keun-ju. "A general should always be accommodating for her troops."

"You guys," said Ji-hyeon, secretly loving the weird sensation of having her Hwabun crew here, providing a chorus to her new life just as they always had to her old. "They're probably just telling me they're leaving. They never actually pledged to..."

Ji-hyeon trailed off as the familiar shape of Sullen stepped into the command tent, the source of his delay now obvious: he'd had to unsling his grandfather from his back before entering the low-ceilinged tent, and now held the old man in his arms like the Star's nastiest baby. In all the excitement of the last few days, she hadn't been able to carve out enough time to see him, and now that he had come to her, was it really just to say good-bye? Their business was with Maroto, and if they had resolved it she might never see him again...

The old man said, "Sorry to interrupt, General Ji-hyeon Bong, General of the Cobalt Company, Second Daughter of some Immaculates I don't know nor ever will, but my grandson and I need a quick ear."

"Uh. General." Neither the presence of his grandfather nor Ji-hyeon's still-seated retinue seemed to be putting Sullen at ease, but then Choi clapped her hands together and rose to her feet.

"We will respect your secrets," said the wildborn, waving Fennec and Keun-ju to accompany her out. Ji-hyeon appreciated the gesture, but Choi's unique vocabulary proved especially mortifying-what was so bad about the word "privacy"? "Secrets" sounded... pretty damn appetizing, where Sullen was concerned, but that was beside the point. Choi was addressing Sullen now, of all people. "Has your uncle overcome his weakness?"

"Doubt he ever will!" said the old man, evidently appreciating Choi's turn of phrase more than Ji-hyeon. "If fear was a muscle, my son's would be bigger than his biceps."

"Choosing not to fight is not the same as fearing it," said Choi, taking the same chiding tone with this scarred-up geriatric as she always used to with Ji-hyeon. "I have seen how adeptly he avoids combat, how his eyes move when his body does not, how swiftly he strikes, when left with no alternative. When he chooses to spill blood, I believe he will prove himself undeserving of your scorn. When I asked of his weakness, I misspoke-I intended to ask of his injuries."

Misspoke? In all their years together, of all Choi's strange turns of phrase, that was one term Ji-hyeon had never heard the wildborn use-she would clarify or translate, sure, but was as careful and precise with her language as she was with her sword. From the look Fennec and Keun-ju exchanged, they were similarly intrigued by this development.

The old man was less impressed. "The boy's certainly adept at avoiding fights, I'll grant you that. I guess all your tongue-wagging means the Mighty Maroto hasn't signed on for the big one, has he?"

"No, he has not," said Choi, and was that a trace of melancholy in her voice? "But it is honor that hamstrings him, not fear. You called him Craven, but that is incorrect. He is crude but strong. He is hurt but hopeful. He is loyal but conflicted. He is rash. Too rash. He has a devil inside him, but I think he can win against it. He will fare better with the tusks of his friends to face it."

Both the old man and Sullen looked taken aback at this, and they didn't even realize how rare a speech it was; usually prying that many words out of Choi required making an enormous error that demanded complicated correction. Then Choi gave them a nod and hustled out, but Keun-ju and Fennec seemed to have forgotten to leave.

"All right then, you two, if you'll excuse us-" Ji-hyeon began, but for the first time that she could remember, Sullen interrupted her.

"Nah, they can stay. General," he added quickly, eyes everywhere but on her. "We won't take but a minute, and I don't mind your captains or guards hearing what I've got to say."

"So say it," said the nearly toothless Ruthless. "Or I will."

"I knew you came to the Cobalt Company on your own business," said Ji-hyeon, feeling Keun-ju's gaze as she bowed to the two barbarians. "I have appreciated our time together, but unless you wish to be caught up in a war that you have no stake in, this is the time to go. I am... delighted you came to say good-bye."

"Nope," said Sullen, and he took a knee with his grandfather still cradled in his arms. "I do have a stake in this, General Ji-hyeon Bong, Second Princess of Hwabun, Daughter of Jun-hwan and Kang-ho Bong: you. I pledge myself in your name, because you're the first person I've met outside the Savannahs who deserves all my respect, and more than I can give besides. If you say this war is worth fighting, I believe you." Sullen was looking up into her eyes now, and without glancing at Keun-ju or a mirror, Ji-hyeon couldn't tell if she, Sullen, or her Virtue Guard looked the most embarrassed by his proclamation. It might have been a three-way tie. "If you'll accept my oath, I'm yours until you release me from the Cobalt Company."

Ji-hyeon nodded, doing everything in her power to keep the smile inside her mouth, but Sullen must have caught the edge of it like he always did, for his eyes lit up as he slowly rose. Grandfather gave her something that might have passed for a salute, and said: "I go where he does, so that means you've got my word, too." He winked a rheumy eye at her. "I wouldn't have laid it on so thick, mind, but I approve the arrangement, if you follow. If we could discuss restitution-"

"Another time," said Sullen quickly. "We'll leave you to your planning, then, General. Just wanted to make sure it was all sorted, since there's noise around camp about tomorrow being the big day. General. Um, Captain Fennec. Captain Keun-ju."

"I'm a Virtue Guard, not a captain," said Keun-ju, meeting Sullen's guileless, friendly glance with a flip of his veil. "It was so nice to finally meet you, after hearing all of Ji-hyeon's tales-I hope when the day is won and we can all return to being civilized the three of us can sit down for kaldi. I'm sure we have so much in common."

"One thing, at least," said Sullen, bolder by half than Ji-hyeon had seen him since that first night he showed up in camp. But quick as the confidence came it fled, no doubt impeded by his grandfather's snickering and Fennec's loud snort. "See you both around out there, I guess."

"I guess we will," said Keun-ju, and then Sullen was out of there as fast as his tightly muscled legs could carry him. Keun-ju whistled softly as Sullen ducked out of the tent. "Oh. So that's what you see in him."

"Are you sure you don't want to ask him to be part of your bodyguard?" asked Fennec. "You can't buy the kind of protection he'd offer you; it has to come from the heart."

"Or somewhere lower," said Keun-ju. "What?"

"Both of you, go," said Ji-hyeon, shooing them out into the twilight. "After all that scintillating conversation I'm quite exhausted, and think I may actually get a good night's sleep for a change. Don't come back until an hour before dawn."

Fennec made tracks, as he usually did, but Keun-ju hung back, his veil rustling in the breeze as he leaned in and whispered, "What about that whole we-may-die-tomorrow business? Making lusciously regrettable decisions? I've missed you so much..."

"I've missed you, too," said Ji-hyeon, pecking him on the lace-hidden cheek. "Now, as soon as you fetch Sullen and get him to agree to a three-way split, we can get on with treating tonight like our last."

Keun-ju pursed his lips and blew, kicking up the edge of his veil. "Really?"

"Maybe for my next birthday," Ji-hyeon murmured, not really able to stop herself now that she'd gotten this close to him. She'd kept Keun-ju at arm's length when he'd first returned to her and they'd had their talk, because she still couldn't shake the doubt that his story was almost too plausible, that maybe he hadn't told her the whole truth... But then again, even if his allegiances were in question elsewhere, she knew she could trust him in bed. Oh, how she'd longed for him, every day since she had left Hwabun... Well, okay, most of them. "Tell you what, Keun-ju-let's go back inside and you can show me how much you missed me."

He'd missed her just as much as she'd missed him, apparently.

Zosia spent all afternoon with Singh and her kids and then ate dinner with Fennec, bullshitting her old friends nearly as much as they bullshitted her. Everyone had their doubts about the coming combat, but Zosia did her best to assuage them-she wanted all hands on blades when the day broke, and if people started losing their nerve now, an already dicey ploy would become unwinnable. In the end all it took was Zosia agreeing to pay the Raniputri mercenaries double what Ji-hyeon had already promised them, and telling Fennec that if he tried to change teams now she'd add him to her shit list. It felt good to know that threat still carried weight with people who knew her from the old days.

As the night wore on she went to check on Maroto again, but to hear his chums laugh about it the old bastard still hadn't recovered from his overindulgence of the night before. Diggelby had just given him something to help him sleep through the night, so after bandying a few words with Purna, Zosia ambled on. Not having much else to do, she took her time getting back to her cot, content to idly follow Choplicker as he snuffled along. In the morning thousands of people would die terrible deaths because a few narcissists were convinced they knew what was best for the Star, and one revenge-minded woman was willing to exploit them. Tomorrow old friends and new might die. Tomorrow the Star might be a very different place than it was this evening.

But tonight Zosia was going to sleep like a contented stinghound tucked in by his favorite centipede. Why shouldn't she? Melodrama aside, odds were the imminent battle wouldn't be the end of the matter; enough of one side or the other would retreat, gather their strength by preying on helpless villages who aided them from either fear or fervor, and then they would all go at it again. That order. Repeat as needed.

She could practically feel the tents humming with nervous anticipation. This was what they'd all signed up for, war... but to hear the other Villains tell it, and to read between the lines of Ji-hyeon's boasts, they'd yet to face a real engagement like this one. Whichever side was victorious, the devils would have more than they could eat on the morrow.

Choplicker seemed to be leading her somewhere through camp, looking over his shoulder to make sure she was with him before turning this way or that. She wanted him on good behavior during the battle, so she went along with him instead of reeling him in. It felt like a dream... no, not quite, it felt like she was wandering through a memory. This night, long as it already felt, might as well last forever-she'd paced camps like this before, the eve of a big tussle, twenty years ago, twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago... and for all the battles she'd won or lost, here she was again.

Ah, so that was what he wanted. The dog had backed his butt up so a friendly guard could properly scratch his rump. The tent the boy watched was the one they'd put the war nun in to convalesce, though the sawbones hadn't thought much of the weirdborn's prospects. Had Zosia known the sister was riddled with half-healed wounds before laying into her that morning, it wouldn't have changed her course-it was as overdue as it was richly deserved. Be that as it may, the war nun's continued unconsciousness was getting irritating, with her master Hjortt's army scheduled to attack anon and nary a confession yet extracted. Zosia had already stopped by twice that day to see if Portoles was alert, but whatever the barber had stung her with to ease the pain had put her down but good.

"She up?" Zosia asked the guard, who looked up from Choplicker and quickly snapped a salute.

"She came 'round and took some water when I got on," he said. "She's asleep again, I think, but I can wake her for you, Captain. My pleasure."

"Not just yet," Zosia decided, as much to spite Choplicker as to give the witch more time to recover before interviewing her. Depending on what she had to say, it was probably best if she was able to take another punch or two when the time came. "I'll be back for her soon enough. Thanks."

Choplicker made to go in anyway, but at a sharp whistle he slunk back, baring his teeth at her but not making a sound. Zosia offered the guard a stiff salute, and from the grin on his face she supposed she'd made the kid's night. Heading straight back to her tent, she gave Choplicker a reproachful shake of her head as he whined again. Whatever terms the queen offered now that she knew her assassination attempt at Kypck had failed, nothing could turn Zosia away from her due.

Slithering out of smoky, sweaty clothes in the chill of her tent, she supposed that was the real tragedy of it all. For all her musings that night, the truth was that she was here because she set out to bring down the queen... but even if she had died in Kypck alongside Leib and their people, this war would still be happening. General Ji-hyeon's plot against the Crimson Empire was exactly what Zosia had vowed and wished for, right down to the color of the flag on the rebel standards, but here on the cusp of successful retaliation, she was just another participant in a cast of many thousands. She had traveled to the far corners of the Star, only to find that the means to her end was doing just fine without her. She had become redundant in her own vengeance.

Crawling under her furs, she let out a long, wistful sigh. She had abandoned the Crown of Samoth precisely because she had concluded that it was beyond her power to change the world. Well, that and a guilty conscience over the realization that she had hurt just as many people as any tyrant before her, whatever her intentions. Now, twenty-some years older, she was all set to stir up the same crock of shit she'd thrown out the last time around, and for the same obvious reason-she thought the sovereign of the Crimson Empire was an asshole.

Except this time around she had only herself to blame for putting the crown on the queen's brow. Maybe she wouldn't sleep tonight after all.

CHAPTER.

22.

Portoles was dreaming of Brother Wan when her eyes began to burn. She stumbled out of her visions, into the glaring lantern light, and tried to rub the itchy crust from her eyes, but both her hands were shackled to the makeshift frame of the cot. She felt languid from more than sleepiness and injury, and remembered the biting centipede the sawbones had offered her when last she woke. Had she accepted? Probably, from the heaviness of her limbs and the lightness of her head, though she had no personal experience with such medicine-the Holy Barbers of the Church declared it a sin to distract an anathema from the material experience of its redemption, and so when they had corrected her tongue, teeth, and other failings she had felt every prick of stitch and rasp of file.

"You look well," said Cold Zosia, the Stricken Queen dragging a stool over next to the bed. The old woman shimmered, and Portoles closed her stinging eyes, offered a prayer to the Fallen Mother for strength. When she opened her eyes they had adjusted to the brightness of the room, and there could be no doubting the woman before was of flesh and blood, not dream and smoke. "Probably could have given you a few more taps and you'd be no worse for wear, big strong monster like you."

"Zosia." The name sent a shiver down Portoles's spine even now. "This is an honor. It's not often a lowly nun is granted audience with a god."

"Oh, it's not so rare as your people make it out to be," said Zosia, crossing her legs. "But I don't think Indsorith sent you all the way here just to talk theology."

"Not much time, now." Portoles licked her lips, amazed that even with the drug, simply talking was so painful. The sawbones who had tended her had told her to make peace with her Savior, but she hadn't reckoned on it coming so quick. She wondered if she'd been dying ever since Heretic had rescued her from the butte, if need alone had kept her alive this long, and now that her confessor had finally arrived she could be set free. "I provoked your general before. That was unwise. If the Immaculate girl truly commands here, if only in your name, you would do well to bring her here as well."

"Oh, the kid's in charge, all right," said Zosia. "But what makes you think she wants to hear anything out of a Chainwitch?"

"Queen Indsorith wishes to prevent war. I have the authority to broker a peace on her behalf, something the Imperial regiments harrying you lack. If I can convince your Immaculate general, if we can convince her, there will be no battle. There will be no war."

"Before Ji-hyeon hears word one of anything you have to say, I need to be convinced," said Zosia, not sounding as though that possibility were very likely. "So somehow dear Queen Indsorith got the idea that I was going to lead a rebellion against her? I wonder who put that notion in her head?"

"It wasn't her order," said Portoles, keeping her voice low. Given Zosia's demeanor, it was imperative she not provoke the woman's wrath, lest it overrule her reason. But how could you keep someone calm when discussing the crimes you had committed against her? "She never ordered Colonel Hjortt to Kypck, never ordered him to make an example out of any village. She never ordered him to execute anyone, not your lover, your townsfolk. None of this was her doing."

"Oh, well all right then!" Zosia threw her hands up. "I'll admit, I was a little worried on that account, but you've put my mind to rest. I will quibble with your choice of words, though-he was my husband, they were my friends, and you butchered them."

"You have no reason to believe me, I know, but-"

"But what?" There was that temper Portoles had been warned of, a temper that might ignite an empire. "She had her move, but she fucked it up. Or rather, her assassins did-that's really the only thing an assassin needs to do, assassinate the target. And now that she sees the plan got botched, she sends you here as a peace offering? I'm supposed to think that it was coincidence that her troops went rogue, coincidence that they happened on Kypck instead of any other of the Empire's thousand other backwaters? Does she think I'm a complete idiot?"

"No," Portoles said patiently. "She does not. She knows better than that, doesn't she? Something terrible happened to you, to your people, and now you are doing what anyone would expect you to do. And given your history, it is obvious that you would suspect the queen, even if it hadn't been Imperial soldiers who came for you."

"Our history?" Zosia raised an eyebrow. "I've told no one of what happened between us, even after everything at Kypck. Am I to understand she broke all of the oaths we made to one another?"

Devils take centipedes and all their soporific kind, Portoles was making a real mess of this. She had tried to talk the queen out of sending her for exactly this reason; that devilish tongue of hers always found a way to betray her. She bit the wicked flesh before trying again. "Given the graveness of the crime against you, and the importance of my mission, she thought it necessary that I know everything. So that if I found you in time you would know beyond any doubt that she sent me, and that I speak with the authority I claim. If I were acting on behalf of any other party I could not know what I do. I am her vouchsafe against further deception."

Zosia was listening now, really listening for the first time. "Prove it, then."

"Prove what?" Portoles wasn't stalling, she really didn't know what else to say that could convince this woman.

"Tell me the whole story, then, or rather, the version she told you. Then we can hear what I'm sure is a most convincing argument as to why she isn't the one I should blame."

"If you insist, Mistress Zosia." That foul curiosity that forever plagued Portoles's heart thrummed in delight at the prospect of having Zosia provide corroboration to the queen's most secret of songs. "Queen Indsorith was a lesser daughter of a minor noble in the Juniusian Court when you killed King Kaldruut and captured the Carnelian Crown. When your first mandate as Cobalt Queen was to disperse the Empire's wealth amongst the people, Junius was first to resist. And like all provinces who refused you, they suffered swift repercussions from your soldiers. What members of Indsorith's family survived your assault did not last long in the Ketzerel labor camps you exiled them to. Only when her last relations perished in bondage did the queen escape, coming to Diadem with a poorly conceived plan to assassinate you."

"She described it as 'poorly planned'?" Zosia smiled for the first time. "Well, I suppose it was."

"She was caught before reaching the second floor of the castle, but instead of a public execution you ordered that she be brought in chains to your throne room. Thereupon you had your private audience." Portoles waited, assuming this would be enough, but Zosia waved her on as she pulled out a curved black pipe and set to lighting it. "She said you looked... tired. You asked her what she intended, armed only with a sword and a grudge, and she told you what had happened to her people. Not to beg for mercy, but to be heard, but once, before her death. Everyone, even an Imperial noble, recognized that your reforms grew from a desire to help the people, but in doing so, countless innocents were paying the price. Instead of being ill-starred to be born a turnip farmer, they were ill-starred to be born noble, or landed, or devout."

"Your church, sister, was as corrupt then as it is now." Zosia blew smoke at Portoles. "I only wish I'd ignored my advisors and put every last one of your clergy to the sword. They said the Chain would help ease the transition to an egalitarian Empire, but those black-robed vultures conspired with the merchants and nobles to thwart me at every turn. That's my chief regret, that I didn't raze every Chainhouse before departing. But please, continue, this is all quite good."

"Yes, well..." Small wonder the church outlawed the mere mention of this woman's name. "After she had spoken her piece, you lectured her on the difficulty of ruling any land, let alone one in such desperate need of change. She responded with an insult, something about how Samoth would be hard pressed to find a worse ruler than you. That, she said, is when everything about your attitude changed, and you challenged her to the duel. And the rest is the rest, but you must believe that she would never, ever repay your-"