"As you say, Lord Kalliam," Ashford said.

T.

he holding at Osterling Fells had been Dawson's home when he was only a boy, and his memories of it were of snow and cold. The dim patterns he'd divined as a child put autumn's feasts of pumpkin sweets and brandy-soaked cherries in Camnipol, snow and ice in Osterling Fells. Almost into adulthood, he had thought of the seasons as residing in different cities. Summer lived in the dark-cobbled streets and high walls of Camnipol. The ice and snow of winter belonged to the narrow valley with its thin river. Granted, the conceit had become more poetic in nature. He wasn't an innocent to think no snow fell on the bridges that spanned the Division or that the summer heat wouldn't bring hunting dogs to torpor in his father's kennels. But the idea had the deep resonance-the rightness-of a thing known in youth and never entirely disbelieved.

The holding had stood in its place at the base of a sloping hill, unchanged for centuries. Before Antea rose as a kingdom, the walls of Osterling Fells had been there. Dragon's jade, eternal and unyielding, wove through the stone and defied wind and weather. The hard granite had eroded in places, and in some even been replaced, but the jade would never fail.

The room he used for his private study was the same that his father had used, and his grandfather, and so on back and back and back. Before this same window, his father had explained that the walls of the holding were like the fabric of the kingdom, that the noble houses were the jade. Without their constancy, even the most glorious structure would eventually fall into ruin.

When his father died, Dawson had taken the holding as his own, raised his own boys within it, and told the same tale over their winter cribs. This land, these walls, are ours, and only the king can take them from us. Anyone else who tries, dies in the attempt. But if the king requires it, then it is his for the asking. That is what loyalty means.

His boys had taken the lesson. Barriath, his eldest, served now under Lord Skestinin in the fleet. Vicarian, second of his sons, and unlikely to inherit, had entered the priesthood. His only daughter, Elisia, had married Lord Annerin's eldest. Only Jorey still remained with the household, and that only until he was called again to service. He had ridden out once, under Lord Ternigan, fought well, and came back a hero and the friend of a hero, even if it was an unreliable one like Geder Palliako.

Dawson found Jorey in a perch at the top of the South Tower. Dawson had spent time there himself as a boy, sticking his head out the thin window and looking down until the height made him dizzy. From here, the lands of Osterling Fells spread out like a map. Two of the villages were clearly visible, and the lake. The trees were all the pale green of new leaf, the shadows all thick with the last of the snow. The cold, soft breeze ruffled Jorey's hair like the feathers of a crow. Two letters-one still sealed with wax the resonant blue of House Skestinin-were forgotten in the young man's hands.

"Letter from your brother? What news from the north?" Dawson asked, and Jorey started, pushing the letters behind him like a kitchen boy caught with sticky lips and a jar of honey. Jorey's cheeks flushed as red as if he'd been slapped.

"He's fine, Father. He says they didn't lose any ships to the freeze, so they're expecting to be on the water again. They might already be."

"That's as it should be," Dawson said. "I met with that idiot from Asterilhold."

"Yes?"

"I've agreed to speak with Simeon about meeting with him. He was also asking whether you would speak with Palliako. He seems to think that soft words from Geder would keep the wheels of vengeance from rolling too far."

Jorey nodded. When his eyes were cast down, he looked like his mother. Clara had the same shape of jaw, the same quiet. The boy was lucky to have that from her.

"Did you say that I would?"

"I said I'd speak to you about it," Dawson said. "You aren't bound to anything."

"Thank you. I'll think on it."

Dawson leaned against the wall. A sparrow darted in through the window, whirled twice through the narrow space, and vanished again in a panic of wind and dust.

"Are you against the thought of war or of speaking to the new Baron Ebbingbaugh?" Dawson asked.

"I don't want to go off to war unless we have to," Jorey said. The first time he'd faced going on campaign, he'd been equal parts anxiety and joy. The experience of it had pressed both out of him. "But if we have to, we will. It's only that Geder... I don't know."

For a moment, Dawson saw the ghosts of Vanai reflected in his son's face. The city that Geder Palliako had burned. It was easy to forget that Palliako had that potential for slaughter in him. But perhaps it was hard for Jorey.

"I understand," Dawson said. "Do what you think best. I trust your judgment."

For some reason Dawson couldn't fathom, the blush in Jorey's cheeks returned and deepened. His boy coughed and wouldn't meet his eye.

"Barriath sent me a letter," Jorey said. "I mean another letter. Inside his. It's from Lord Skestinin. It's a formal introduction to Sabiha. His daughter."

The pause that followed seemed to have some weight. Jorey's dread was as palpable as it was strange.

"I see," Dawson said. "Introduction to his daughter, you say? Hmm. Well, if you don't care to make the connection, we could say the letter went astray..."

"I had asked, sir. I asked for the letter."

"Ah," Dawson said. "Well. Then good you have it, yes?"

Jorey looked up. His eyes betrayed his surprise.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose it is. Sir."

They stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Dawson nodded, turned, and walked back down the narrow spiral stair, his head almost against the stone of the steps above him, with the uncomfortable sense of having given his blessing to something.

Clara, of course, understood at once.

He'd no sooner mentioned Lord Skestinin's daughter than Clara's eyebrows tried to rise up to meet her hairline.

"Oh good God," she said. "Sabiha Skestinin? Who would have guessed that?"

"You know something about the girl?" Dawson asked.

Clara put down her needlework and drew the clay pipe from between her lips, tapping its stem gently against her knee. The window of their private room was open, and the smell of the lilacs mixed with the smoke of her tobacco.

"She's a clever girl. Very pretty. Sweet-tempered, so far as I can tell, but you know how it is with these girls. They know more ways to lie than a banker. And, more to the point, she's fertile."

Dawson's confusion resolved and he sat on the edge of his bed. Clara sighed.

"She had her boy two years ago by no one in particular," Clara said. "He's being raised by one of the family retainers in Estinport. Everyone's been very good about pretending it doesn't... he doesn't exist, but of course it's common knowledge. I imagine Lord Skestinin's quite pleased to write letters of introduction for anyone with a drop of noble blood, and lucky for the chance."

"No," Dawson said. "Absolutely not. I won't have my boy wearing secondhand clothes."

"She isn't a coat, dear."

"You know what I mean," Dawson said, rising to his feet. He should have known. He should have guessed by the shame in Jorey's body that the girl was a slut. And now Dawson had said that getting the letter was a good thing. "I'll find him now and put a stop to this."

"Don't."

Dawson turned back at the doorway. Clara hadn't risen. Her face was soft and round, her eyes on his. Her perfect rosebud lips curled in a tiny smile, and with the light spilling across her, she looked... no, not young again. Better than young again. She looked like herself.

"But, love, if Jorey-"

"There are weeks between now and the first chance he could have to see her. There isn't a rush."

He took a step back into the room before he knew he'd done it. Clara put the pipe stem back in her mouth, drawing gently. Smoke seeped out of her nostrils like she was some ancient dragon hidden in a woman's flesh. When she spoke, her voice was light, conversational, but her eyes were locked on his.

"As I recall, I wasn't the first girl you ever took to bed," she said. "I believe you knew exactly what you were about when my bride's night came."

"She's a woman," he said. "It's not the same."

"I suppose it isn't," Clara said, a note of melancholy stealing into her voice. "Still, we're all round-heeled sometimes. I would have fallen back for you months before you made me honest, and we both remember that."

Dawson's body began to stir without his will.

"You're trying to distract me."

"It's working," Clara said. "Indiscreet and unlucky doesn't make her a bad person. Or a bad wife. Give it time, and let me see what I can learn of her when we're back in Camnipol. Lord Skestinin might make a very fine ally if Jorey were to lift up his fallen daughter. And really, dear, they may be in love."

She held out her hand, guiding him down to sit beside her. Her skin wasn't as smooth as it had been two decades and four children before, but it was still as soft. The amusement in her eyes called forth a softness in his own heart. He could feel his outrage fading. He plucked the pipe from her mouth, leaned forward, and kissed her gently, his mouth filling with her smoke. When he drew back, she was smiling.

"As long as she's not unfaithful," Dawson said with a sigh. "I won't have someone in the family being unfaithful."

A cloud seemed to pass over Clara's eyes, a moment's darkness but nothing more.

"When the time comes," she said. "We can worry when the time comes."

Captain Marcus Wester.

I.

t was a week past his thirty-ninth name day, and Marcus squatted at the alley's mouth, waiting. A soft rain fell on the nightdark streets, beading on the waxed wool of his cloak. Yardem stood in the shadows behind him, unseen but present. In the house across the narrow square, a shape passed in front of the window-a man peering out into the darkness. A less experienced man might have stepped back, but Wester knew how to keep from being seen. The man in the window retreated. The tapping of raindrops against stone was the only sound.

"It's not as if I can tell her what to do," Marcus said.

"No, sir."

"She's a grown woman. Well, she's almost a grown woman. She's not a child, certainly."

"It's an awkward age, sir," Yardem agreed.

"She wants control over her life. Autonomy. The problem is that she didn't have any her whole life, and then had all of it at once. She had free rein with this bank for months. Long enough to see that she could do it well. After getting a taste for it, I don't see how she turns her back."

"Yes, sir."

Marcus sighed. His breath barely misted. It was a warm spring. He tapped his fingertips against his sword's pommel. Annoyance and concern gnawed at him like rats in the grain house walls.

"I could talk to her," he said at last. "I could tell her that she's got to be patient. Give the situation time to change on its own. Could she hear that, d'you think?"

For a moment, the rain was the only reply.

"Did you want me to answer that?" the Tralgu asked.

"I asked it, didn't I?"

"Could have been a rhetorical point."

Across the square, a thin line of light marked an opening door. Marcus went still for a few seconds, but the door closed again without opening fully. He eased his grip on his sword.

"No, I really meant it," he said. "She's my employer, but she's also... Cithrin. If you've got a suggestion here, I'm open to hearing it."

"Well, sir, I believe that every soul has its own shape-"

"Ah, God. Not this again."

"You asked, sir. You might let me answer."

"Right, sorry. Go ahead. I'll tell myself it's all a metaphor for something."

Yardem's sigh was eloquent, but he continued.

"Every soul has its own shape, and it determines the person's path through the world. Your soul is a circle standing on its edge. At your lowest point, you will only rise, and your highest is when you are most likely to fall. Someone else's soul might be shaped like a blade or a brick or a branching river. Each of them would live the same life differently."

"Which would make it the same life how?"

"I can explain that if you'd like, sir. It's theological."

"No, forget I said anything."

"If the magistra's soul leads her in one way, it will seem the simplest path, whether it is or not. If she's left within herself, she'll turn in that direction just like Old Imbert drifted to the left after he took that hammer to his head. To make another choice would require the action of a different soul-"

Marcus raised his hand, and Yardem fell silent. The door that had opened before shifted. The light behind it was gone, and the movement was only a deeper bit of darkness. Yardem shifted. Marcus squinted into the dim.

"He's going north, sir."

Marcus took to his feet and shrugged back his cloak, the rain dampening his newly freed sword arm. Around them, Porte Oliva slept, or if it didn't sleep, at least huddled close to its fires. If there had been moonlight, the pale walls and blue-painted lintels of the merchant quarter would have glowed. Instead, Marcus navigated by shadows and memory. Here and there, a lantern hung from an iron hook beside a door, spilling thin light, but there was more than enough gloom to cling to for a man who didn't want to be seen. The bricks under his feet were slick with grime and rain. Marcus walked quickly, not quite trotting, and straining his ears for his quarry's footsteps. Yardem could have been his shadow.

The man's mistake was a small one, and inevitable. A small splash of a heel coming down in an unexpected puddle and an involuntary grunt. It was enough. They were close enough. It was time.

"Canin!" Marcus said with a friendliness that might almost have been genuine. "Canin Mise, as I live and breathe. Imagine meeting you out on a night like this."

For a moment, it could have gone either way. The man could have greeted him, pretended some legitimate business, and had their conversation. Instead, there was the soft hiss of steel clearing its sheath. Marcus was disappointed, but he wasn't surprised. He stepped back slowly, putting another foot or two between himself and the man.

"It doesn't have to be like this," Marcus said, easing his own blade free with a finger pressed against it to keep it from singing. "No one has to die here."

"You cheated me," the little merchant said. "You and that half-breed bitch you dance for."

The buzz in his voice wasn't a drunkard's. It was worse than that. It belonged to a man who had taken the humiliation of his own failures and forged a weapon from them. That was hatred, and too much wine would have been easier to recover from.

"You borrowed money," Marcus said, circling slowly to the right. The rain chilled his sword. "You knew the risks. The magistra forgave you three payments already. And now there's a story you're looking to leave the city. Set up shop in Herez. You know I can't let that happen until you clear your debt. Now let's put the sharp things away and talk about how you're going to make this right."

"I'll go where I want and I'll do what I please," the man growled.

"That's not where I'd put my bet," Marcus said.

Canin Mise was decent with a blade. Veteran of two wars, five years as a queensman before the governor's magistrates suggested he look for work elsewhere. His plan for starting a fighting school had been a good one. If he'd followed it, he'd likely have died with a reputation and enough money to set up any children he'd fathered along the way. Instead, his foot scraped against the cobbles and his blade hissed through the rain-thick air. Marcus held his sword in a ready block and stepped back out of his reach.