Chapter Book 7 ex1: Interlude: West I

Life was full of ironies, Prince Frederic Goethal had found.

Death too, he supposed, though circumstance dictated that one’s enjoyment of such humour would be severely curtailed. For this jest, however, the Gods Above were yet smiling down on them. The endless armies of the Hidden Horror had smashed themselves against the walls of the Morgentor again and again, hordes beyond counting and horrors beggaring nightmares. The last fortress of Twilight’s Pass had held back the madness, as Lycaonese grimly had for centuries, but all the world had known that it was only a matter of time until the Morgentor fell.

There were simply too many of the dead and too few soldiers to stop them, no matter how sharp the courage and tall the walls. All of Procer, perhaps even all of Calernia, had turned its eye to fortress in the frozen north where horror was yet dammed. Like a face cringing away from a blow yet struck.

Yet they had done it. Against the odds, against the night and the fear and the endless cruelty of Evil, the Morgentor had held. Towers had fallen, even the fortress itself for a time, but always the armies under Otto and Frederic had taken it back. Even now, as the morn’s light fell on the stony grounds below, Prince Frederic stood atop the tower known as the Westenhaupt and knew the living to be the masters of the field. The dead were scattered and burning, the miraculous engines known as Pickler’s Nails – picklernagel – pounding away at their retreating mass.

Balls of pitch hit the ground, tossed by spindly catapults, spilling blackness where they landed and spreading the flames everywhere. The changes goblin engineering had made here… The Dead King’s commanders had grown wary of committing beorns to the first wave of the assault, after the fourth time they died without even touching a wall. Wary! The absurdity of that old monster’s generals being wary of anything at all had been as fine wine.

It had been night and day. Even after the Hidden Horror plied fresh tricks and opened a gate into the very Hells, the lines had buckled yet stubbornly refused to break. With valour and fire, the armies of the west had held back the tide even as all the world expected them to fall. But life was full of delightful, cruel ironies and so it had not mattered. To the southeast the Hocheben Heights had fallen: the dead were now pouring into Bremen like an unstoppable tide, burning and killing as they went.

The Morgentor had not fallen but it was going to have to be abandoned, lest the dead march north and surround it entirely.

The Kingfisher Prince looked down at the fleeing dead, sword in hand and fingers tight on the grip. Two years he’d fought here. Bled here, with the hard-faced soldiers at his side. The Morgentor was hundreds of miles from the borders of Brus, but he fancied he now knew the fortress as well as if he had been born here. It was not his home, but Frederic had well thought it might be his grave before it all ended. It was… frustrating to abandon it like this. The prince knew well the strategic necessity – already it would be a hard campaign to push south through the enemy invading Bremen, to be enveloped here was death – yet what the mind knew the heart disavowed. It tasted like defeat, leaving.

It was in the soldiers around him too, he could feel it. Aid fluttered in him like butterfly wings, urging him to help but not quite knowing how. Westenhaupt was heavy on Neustrians, whose home was south of Bremen was now next to fall, but that stern lot was no more inclined to leave than the rest. Garbed in steel and iron the soldiers milled about the rampart, talking in terse Reitz and keeping an eye on the wyrms in the distance. Even Frederic’s own retinue was in a dark mood. Such a small thing, pride, but was it not the smallest of axles on which the world rested? Small wounds could kill an army if left to fester.

Yet what could he do?

“It is finished for the day, my prince. The curs will not return until they have greater numbers than this to field.”

Frederic glanced at his captain – a distant cousin of his, he’d been given to understand – who’d addressed him and nodded agreement.

“They’ll be back under cover of darkness,” the Prince of Brus said.

Even with goblin spotters, night had the living at a disadvantage. The span they’d just bought, however, would be the opportunity of their departure. The armies had been ready to decamp and march south for days, it was only the constant assaults of the Enemy that’d kept them still. A fighting retreat all the way to Bremen would be… difficult, even for veterans like these. The soldiers around them had been listening without even the pretence otherwise and a familiar officer stepped forward, Captain Fredda of the Neustrian royal army.

“It is done, then,” she said. “We will flee south?”

The question was blunt, but more importantly reflected on the faces of most around them. Aid fluttered in him still, insistent. The Kingfisher Prince looked away, down at the fleeing throng of corpses. What could he claim?

“We will be back,” Frederic said. “And so will they.”

Grim nods, but the arrow had missed. The Kingfisher Prince thought, for a moment, of what Otto would say in his place. Something stern, do doubt. They were a stern and unflinching lot, the Reitzenberg. The Prince of Bremen was called Otto Redcrown by men for the proof of that, the same stubborn charge that’d killed his father and two elder sisters before the crown passed to him and he carried it to its end. And like that, Frederic found his answer.

“It begins now, our war,” the Prince of Brus said.

That claimed their attention.

“We will march south,” Frederic Goethal said. “Through Bremen and Neustria, through my own Brus in time, but though battles await us on that path it cannot be called a campaign.”

He smiled.

“It is a muster,” the prince said. “The last muster we have in us, the last gasp of Procer. And you all know where we will strike, once the strength of the east and the west is gathered.”

The Kingfisher Prince raised his sword, pointed it east. Where, beyond mountains and lakes and clouds of poison, lay the Crown of the Dead. Keter, the Hidden Horror’s seat of power.

“You call it fleeing,” the Kingfisher Prince laughed, “but you should know better, Fredda. Today, at long last, we begin our march on Keter.”

And inside of him the wings ceased fluttering at last, a smile from Above, as all around him backs straightened and stares hardened. Frederic had not lied, after all. The dead would chase them south relentlessly, until the time came for the last battle of this war. Frederic Goethal watched the corpses fleeing below one last time, fingers tight around his sword. Doom had come for the Principate of Procer, doom as no realm of man had ever known before.

They would meet that end, the Kingfisher Prince swore, straight-backed and proud.

The blow had split open her helm.

A shallow cut, she’d been lucky, but head wounds always bled ugly. Rozala Malanza, Princess of Aequitan, ripped off the straps of her helmet and tossed it away. It was useless now anyway and shaking free her sweaty hair was a small pleasure. Irritated at the delay, she glared at the priest laying his hands on her back.

“Hurry up, would you?” the dark-haired princess bit out.

A cleared throat followed and she glanced guiltily at Louis Rohanon, the former prince of Creusens who was now her formal secretary. And something rather more thrilling, in private, though that was best kept quiet.

“It would be easier if you dismounted,” Louis mildly said.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back on my horse if I do,” Rozala admitted.

Russet eyes narrowed, but he knew better than to argue against her getting back into the thick of the fight. The Princess of Aequitan was not the kind of general that shied away from the melee: it was why men followed her into the dark. She asked them to brave no peril she was not willing to risk at their side. Louis simply nodded, even though he disapproved, and she felt a sudden swell of affection. He was a wonderful lover, but she had often thought he could be more should politics allow. Perhaps even if not. She had come to suspect there might be… other considerations. The dark-haired princess laid a hand on her belly. It was still too early to tell, but there were signs.

“The Levantines are still holding strong out west,” Louis told her. “But the Red Knight sent word that the Hawk has been nipping at them all afternoon. Lord Yannu took an arrow but he still lives.”

Rozala grimaced, the Light wielded by the priest at her side finally reaching her scalp. The wound began to mend.

“Someone really needs to kill that thing for good,” Rozala cursed. “And the eastern flank?”

“Still harassed by skirmishers, but the Cleven horse is scattering them,” Louis said. “If we can push through to the south, we have our path to Peroulet.”

Where the last line of defence for the principality of Cleves would stand. How quicky the wind had turned against them, Rozala thought. But a few months ago she had triumphed at the Battle of Trifelin then resisted the siege that followed in the victory’s wake. Even the opening of the Hellgate had not been enough to dislodge her. Yet the Hidden Horror, while losing battles, had found ways to win the war. As he had done to the Lycaonese up north, he had done to her here in Cleves: when the neck did not bend, he had struck the ribs. Rozala had lost the western coast while pinned in Trifelin so and seen herself at risk of being surrounded should the city of Atandor fall.

Cordelia Hasenbach had sent the order to retreat south to Peroulet before she could even consider a stratagem to turn this around. And though part of her had wanted to fight the First Prince’s command to retreat, Rozala had known it to be the right decision. Cleves was good as lost and there would be no reinforcements coming until it was far, far too late. It had been good that she’d not dallied out of pique, for Atandor had fallen earlier than anticipated and the army that’d taken it had swung north to attack her from behind as she already led her armies into a fighting retreat. For three days now her forces had been fighting the dead in heavy skirmishes, the Hidden Horror trying to mire her out here in the open instead of behind the walls of Peroulet.

She would not give the old monster his wish.

“Find me a helmet,” Princess Rozala asked her lover. “And a fresh lance. We must pierce through, else half of us will be corpses come morning.”

“Both are already on their way,” Louis replied, ruefully smiling.

Rozala almost leaned down to kiss him, holding herself back at the very last moment. His lips quirked anyway. Rising her saddle, caressing her charger’s neck, she turned her gaze to the field in the distance. They would make it to Peroulet, that much she would swear to any Gods that cared enough to listen. After, however… That fortress would be the last holdout before the hordes of the Dead King broke into the plains to the south. And if they do then Principate is dead, Rozala thought. It was a harsh thing, to realize that she had already given all the ground that she could afford to give. The moment she raised her banner over Peroulet, Rozala Malanza’s back would be to the wall. And the terrible truth was that, beneath all the oaths and speeches, the Princess of Aequitan was not sure she could hold the city.

No, that was a lie. She knew she would lose those walls. It was only a question of how long she could eke out before she did.

Breathing out, Princess Rozala Malanza accepted the helmet her lover pressed into her hand, setting it atop the crown of her head. A lance filled her hand, familiar weight, and she looked up at the sunny afternoon sky. They must first survive today, she reminded herself, before being troubled by tomorrow.

“One miracle at a time,” Rozala murmured into the wind, and rode back to war.

The First Prince thought it would look much like this, if an empire could see the headsman’s axe coming down on its neck.

The Morgentor had fallen. Rhenia had fallen. Bremen was halfway into the grave. The sole major military force left in northern Procer, under the command of the princes of Brus and Bremen, was fighting through the horde so it could make it to the temporary safety of Neustria. Cordelia had done all she could to evacuate her people further south, into Segovia, but many had stayed. Too many. Lycaonese, she should have remembered, were a stubborn lot. They were not retreating, not leaving. They would fight the dead fiercely for every league of stone, every river, every hill and forest and muddy road. It was the old fight, the old duty. The walls must hold, lest dawn fail.

That pride might yet kill them all, and with every passing day Cordelia Hasenbach could do less to ward away that fate.

Cleves was holding better, but barely. A ring of forts had been raised along the line drawn by Peroulet, after Cordelia drew from the refugee camps for labour. Food and places on carts headed south for the families of those who accepted had earned her enough volunteers that pits could be dug, palisades raised and stones stacked fast enough it could almost be called a miracle. The First Prince knew better. If there was one thing the Principate still had plenty of, it was hands that could be put to work. The entire effort had felt much like raising a sandcastle to stop the tide, but the fair-haired princess had gritted her teeth and seen it done regardless. Despair was not worth a whistle. If Cordelia failed, it would be after she had moved Heavens and earth trying.

Even from Hainaut the news was grim. General Abigail had been dislodged from the Cigelin Sisters by an enemy offensive, though she’d retreated in good order to Lauzon’s Hollow after covering her retreat with swaths of goblinfire. The White Knight’s crushing victory at Juvelun had secured the eastern passage, for now at least, but all of Cordelia’s generals agreed it was now only a matter of time until the Army of Callow was pushed back to the old defence lines at Neustal. And once that was the case, once all that stood between Procer and annihilation was forts from the hills of western Cleves to eastern Hainaut, then it would be the beginning of the end. The Dead King would hold the shores of the lakes and be able to cross unimpeded.

Looking at the grey stealing inch after inch of the exquisite map at the heart of the Vogue Archive, Cordelia Hasenbach could almost hear the whistling sound the axe was making as it came down on the neck of the Principate of Procer.

Though tastefully clothed and as rested as she could afford to be, Cordelia could not help but feeling worn to the bone. It showed, too, in some ineffable part of her. She’d glimpsed it in her looking glass, that subtle quality that came from a tool being worked ‘til it was near breaking. Yet the fire in her belly would not let her close her eyes, not when every missed opportunity was a few hundred more of the people in her care sent to the grave. The First Prince heard the Forgetful Librarian approach, recognizing the footsteps, and afforded the other woman a questioning glance.

“Word from the Dominion just came,” the Damned said. “It worked.”

Cordelia did not hide her surprise quite quickly enough.

“They agreed to the oaths?” she pressed.

“Every major line of the Blood swore oaths that the seneschal of Levante is to hold the city until the end of the war, when the Majilis will convene to settle the succession of the Isbili,” the Librarian confirmed. “The peace-oaths were not as widespread, but the rumours the Circle seeded seem to have moved public opinion where you wanted.”

This time it was a smile she hid. Cordelia had ordered that word be spread the Grey Pilgrim had died wishing for peace between Levantines before his sacrifice at the Battle of Hainaut, which would have meant little in Procer but carried a great deal of weight in the Dominion. He had been revered as half a god, in those parts. There would still be bandits and raiders that took advantage of the chaos, but the spectre of the Peregrine’s disapproval would stay many a hand. Perhaps, if she were lucky, enough that the Dominion of Levant did not collapse into utter anarchy. Methodical anarchy, at least, she would be able to prop up for a little longer still.

Long enough that if she no longer could, it was because Cordelia could do nothing at all.

“We can turn our attention to the League, then,” the First Prince said. “Have our envoys to Bellerophon sent word back yet?”

“Yes,” the Librarian grimaced. “That they have yet to be received by the expedition’s generals.”

The Republic of Bellerophon had, to almost universal surprised, succeeded at assembling an army and sweeping over the last holdings of Penthes. Unfortunately, the victorious citizen-soldiers had then begun a siege of the city-state that they were very unlikely to be able to carry out successfully. Cordelia would have had little issue with this, had General Basilia not been leading a coalition army east with the intention of besieging that very same city only to find that there was already an army camped beneath its walls. Given that Basilia had bought dwarven engines so that she would at least be able to breach the walls of Penthes and put an end to the war she’d begun, this was a… frustrating situation.

The Secretariat of Delos had invited her to mediate a peace between the parties involved, but while Helike and its vassals were amenable the Republic was proving to be rather more obstinate. The People had voted that Anaxares the Diplomat yet lived, and so was still Hierarch of the League of Free Cities. As a consequence, it was illegal for them to receive foreign envoys. The situation in the south had therefore turned into a farce of standoff under the walls of Penthes, General Basilia having refused to give battle and instead sent war parties to pillage the Penthesian countryside. She was, Cordelia suspected, trying to earn back what she had spent on those dwarven war engines.

“Then we lean on Atalante,” the First Prince said. “If they consent, Delos could at last call a formal session of the League of Free Cities.”

The end of hostilities that entailed could be used to force Bellerophon back to its territory, given that the republic still claimed to be loyal to its lost Hierarch. If General Basilia could steal a march on Bellerophon when hostilities resumed after, she could claim the siege first and finally bring the civil war to an end. Beginning to consider how the ruling priests might be convinced to end their self-imposed isolation, Cordelia ceased when she saw a messenger come for her. She glanced at the Librarian, who snorted before taking the offered scroll for her. It was given unto her afterwards, however, and she frowned. The head of the Circle of Thorns, Louis de Sartrons, claimed he had urgent news.

And to think she had almost begun to find a silver lining to the cloud.

Cordelia wasted no time in heading towards the salon where her spymaster would be waiting. The conversation would trouble her carefully arranged schedule if it ran for too long, and she had an obligation that could not be put off later that evening, but she would have to adapt. Louis de Sartrons was not the kind of man to call anything urgent without good reason. Within moment of sitting across from him and taking a polite sip at the served tea, the skeletally thin older man spoke a sentence that chilled her blood.

“The Dead King is looking for the ealamal.”

Cordelia carefully set down the cup, painted porcelain of exquisite delicacy. She did not ask whether or not her spymaster was certain, as it would be an insult to the both of them.

“Has he found it?” she asked instead, forcing calm.

“I believe not,” Louis de Sartrons replied. “A Revenant was caught in southern Lyonis and another was seen in Lange, but the facility in Brabant has not been breached.”

It would not be catastrophic even if it were, Cordelia reminded herself. Brabant had been judged too close to the enemy, and so the weapon had been moved into southeastern Aisne.

“Destroy it,” Cordelia ordered. “We must be sure the Enemy learns as little as he can.”

“I will see it done,” her spymaster agreed, then thinly smiled. “It may very well be only a matter of time until it is found regardless of any measure, Your Highness. Unless we let Chosen see to the defences-”

“We will not,” the First Prince sharply interrupted.

She would not let the White Knight usurp control of the weapon. It had been made of the corpse of an angel of Judgement, there could be no pretence of Hanno of Arwad not becoming its master as soon as he laid hands on it – and he would, if any of the Chosen took up guarding the ealamal. The loyalty of the heroes went first to their champion, and the White Knight had already proved himself untrustworthy in the Arsenal. Cordelia would not make the same mistake twice.

“Then the best we can deliver is delay, Your Highness,” Louis de Sartrons blandly said. “And I would consider Sister Alberte’s proposal that a limited test be attempted. Otherwise we know too little of the weapon for it to be considered usable, in my opinion.”

The First Prince hesitated, staying silent. It had been the question that plagued them all ever since the Salian Peace. What would a weapon made of a fallen angel of Judgement do, if Judgement was kept silent by a madman? The Hidden Horror himself had claimed that the Tyrant of Helike had spared them all a great doom by arranging for the Hierarch to do this, and the secrets unearthed in Levant last year had borne this true in part. If the Intercessor truly could influence angels, using the ealamal would have been a mistake. It would have given that enigmatic monster power of life and death over half of Calernia. Yet with the Hierarch staying true to his course of obstruction, the situation had changed again.

If the ealamal could be used without the Intercessor’s meddling, then Cordelia still had a way to prevent the fall of Calernia. If. Only none could tell her what the weapon might do without the guidance of angels behind it, and there was no known precedent to draw on. What way but a test was there to gain an answer? A small use, limited in scope, but still a use. The First Prince was inclined to agree with her spymaster of the necessity, but it was not so simple as that. There was another crowned head whose assent must be gained before that, lest in chasing ghosts Cordelia make an enemy of the living. Catherine Foundling had not been shy in voicing her disapproval of the entire affair, and absurdly enough the Black Queen was now Cordelia’s closest and most important ally.

“I am to speak with the Black Queen tonight,” she finally said. “The subject will be broached.”

“That is all I can ask, Your Highness,” Louis de Sartrons said, bowing his head.

The parlour had been refurbished from floor to ceiling when it was first dedicated to a new purpose, that of serving as the scrying room the First Prince of Procer would use to speak with the Queen of Callow. An entire wall had been covered by a beautiful silver mirror while the plush sofas had been replaced by a beautiful yet severe set of Lycaonese armchairs and tables. Bureaus had been filled with papers which might be of use in discussion, the latest reports and predictions, while the walls were covered with maps and tapestries. Every detail had been tailored according to what her agents believed to be the preferences of Catherine Foundling.

Though Cordelia doubted their common amiability could be traced back to these changes, it had to be said that at least the change of furniture had ensured that the Black Queen would no longer eye the more elaborate Alamans furnishings with barely veiled disdain. The First Prince was in some ways rather amused by the other royal’s disdain for luxuries, considering that for all her severe inclinations she was likely one of the wealthiest women in all of Calernia these days.

The First Prince of Procer poured herself a cup of mead and set the pitcher down on the table before slipping into the armchair – discreetly made more comfortable with cushions – and allowed herself to take a sip. Unlike the Black Queen, who usually guzzled wine as if it were water while they talked, she moderated herself. It made it all the more frustrating that the drink usually came to redden her cheeks before it did the other ruler’s, to be frank. Before she had even set down the cup, the surface of the mirror before her rippled. It took a moment for the wizards of the Observatory in Laure to bind her to the Hierophant’s spell in Praes, but hardly more than a few breaths.

On the other side of the mirror the Black Queen, looking as tired as Cordelia herself felt, offered her a lopsided grin.

“Your Highness,” Queen Catherine of Callow said.

“Your Majesty,” First Prince Cordelia of Procer replied.

Catherine Foundling could be striking on a good day, but this did not seem to be one of them. Her clothes were ruffled, her expression drawn and there was no sign of the ruinous charisma that had drawn so many to her causes – fair and foul. The cloth covering the eye she’d lost in Hainaut was slightly askew, which made her shark cheekbones stand out more than usual. Cordelia almost wished she had not taken the time to put on a fine dress in Rhenian blue herself, but only almost. Even if Foundling noticed the difference between them, which a slight frown told Cordelia she had, the queen was was always easier to deal with when the Lycaonese princess was dressed becomingly.

The Black Queen’s wandering eye was well-know, and Cordelia had not gotten where she was by refusing to use the arrows in her quiver.

“A trying day?” the First Prince asked.

The tanned woman – even darker of skin, now that she campaigned under the Wasteland sun – barked out a laugh.

“In a way,” the Black Queen said. “I have what I came for: High Lord Sargon’s granary and his treasury are secured and ready to be moved. I can begin heading south for a decisive battle.”

“A great victory,” Cordelia said, meaning every word.

The city of Wolof was famous even in her native Rhenia, known as a great fortress that’d broken the same armies that had taken Ater and brought down the Tower. That Foundling had beggared it without even having to storm the walls or losing more than a handful of men was the kind of feat a reputation could be made of, were the Black Queen’s own not far beyond such tales nowadays.

“So they tell me,” Catherine Foundling tiredly said. “Akua Sahelian left my camp two days ago. Our spies in Wolof tell me she has entered the Empyrean Palace.”

Cordelia, knowing the Doom of Liesse to be a thorny matter, took a sip from her mead as she chose her words.

“Her desertion is as you predicted,” the First Prince said. “And planned for.”

The other woman winced.

“If I might give you a word of advice?”

Cordelia cocked a brow but nodded.

“I wouldn’t ever say anything that could be construed as a variation on ‘just as planned’,” the Black Queen said, and she seemed completely serious. “That never ends well.”

The blonde princess leaned back into her seat. It was absurd enough advice, on the surface, but it was no fool giving it.

“One of the obscure rules of… Named, I take it,” Cordelia said, deciding using Chosen or Damned would be undiplomatic.

“More for villains than heroes,” the Black Queen said, “but it’s best steered clear of across the board. Sharp irony tends to ensure.”

“I will keep it in mind when dealing with Named,” Cordelia replied.

It was useful information and there was no denying that in these matters Catherine Foundling was a great deal more learned than Frederic Goethal, who Cordelia had attempted to learn from only to find his knowledge of the affairs of Chosen to be rather shallow. The likes of the Peregrine and the Black Queen seemed, unfortunately, to be quite rare.

“Might be useful for you to keep in mind period,” the queen drawled.

“While I appreciate the implicit compliment, I am not Chosen,” Cordelia flatly said.

The other woman leaned back into her seat, inside that campaign tent of hers. She took up a goblet of what looked like that truly horrid orcish liquor – aragh – and knocked it back, offering a toothy smile afterwards.

“Maybe not right now,” the Black Queen said. “But I wouldn’t bet on that staying true forever. Vivienne tells me you’ve gotten Levant back into a semblance of order.”

The heiress to Callow would have read the report earlier. It seemed an odd change of subject, but likely wasn’t. These little detours were a staple of conversation with Catherine Foundling, she had learned.

“Lady Itima’s contributions were key,” Cordelia said. “But I will agree that the Dominion has somewhat stabilized.”

“Yeah,” the Queen of Callow drawled, rolling her eye. “I’m sure Itima Ifriqui was the one who came up with that oath and propaganda plan. Seems right up her alley, that play.”

Cordelia’s lips thinned.

“You have a point, I imagine?”

“You got Levant in order,” the Black Queen said. “You’re keeping Procer from falling apart and taking the lead in the fight against the Dead King. There’s a title for someone who does that, Hasenbach.”

Ah, were they now dispensing with titles? Foundling usually on began that a few drinks in.

“Is there?” the First Prince replied, skeptical.

“Sure,” Foundling shrugged. “Warden of the West. What a fun coincidence that you happen to already bear it.”

“That door lay open before me once,” Cordelia coldly said. “I did not step through the threshold. It is not a choice I regret.”

“You didn’t take the Name, maybe,” the Black Queen said. “But the Role, you made it yours anyway. There’s not a pie west of the Whitecaps you don’t have your finger in. Might take a year, might take twenty, but Creation will answer to the truth of that.”

She smiled, looking fearsome and sympathetic both.

“You can swim against the river all you like, Cordelia Hasenbach,” she said. “It won’t get tired before you do.”

The genuine sympathy in the other woman’s voice made it a harder blow than if she’d been cruel. It sounded like something she truly did believe. And though this talk of Name and Role was… esoteric, there seemed to be some manner of logic to it. However tortured. And though you are a madwoman, Catherine Foundling, Cordelia thought, you might just be the cleverest madwoman alive. This was not an assertion to be lightly dismissed.

“I will heed your warning,” the First Prince said, politely calling the subject to a close.

Foundling nodded, looking almost nonchalant. She was… loose tonight, Cordelia decided. Less controlled than usual. And for all her drinking and seeming carelessness, the Black Queen usually kept close mastery of herself. This, though, seemed unguarded.

“Does Sahelian’s betrayal truly trouble you so?” the fair-haired princess quietly asked. “You told me of its coming months ago.”

“It stings,” Catherine Foundling artlessly confessed. “I didn’t think it would. Wasn’t sure it would, maybe.”

“And still you went forward with this scheme,” Cordelia said. “Why? There are less convoluted ways to take revenge, Foundling. And I did not question your plans, for this is an affair of Named and Callowan besides, but I will admit I find what I know of this to be baffling.”

The one-eyed queen’s lips quirked. That had, somehow, pleased her to hear. She truly took as compliments the strangest of things.

“It’s not just about revenge,” the Black Queen said. “It’s… hard to articulate.”

Cordelia was not so sure. She thought it might instead be that it was the simplest thing to articulate in the world, but that the queen across the mirror would resist speaking those words to the bitter end. It was a shocking thought, that Catherine Foundling might have affections for the woman that’d destroyed Liesse, but in a way fascinating as well. Cordelia was not certain whether it was the tint of tragedy to the whole affair or simply that she had never before met someone with such spectacularly terrible taste in women before, but the perhaps the truth lay somewhere in the middle.

“A strange revenge indeed, to return her home and to the Tower’s service after having been one of your inner circle,” Cordelia mildly said. “Unless you have sabotaged her prospects?”

The Black Queen grinned, a vicious slice of ivory.

“Oh, not at all,” Catherine Foundling said. “She is going to get everything that she ever wanted.”

The queen poured herself another cupful of liquor.

“But that’s the thing with Praes, see,” she continued. “You get whatever you want, but never the way you want it.”

“It is your campaign to lead,” Cordelia finally said. “And I cannot gainsay your results so far.”

“It’ll be a battle next,” Foundling opined. “A convergence. The fate of Praes going forward is going to be wrestled over. And after that…”

“Ater,” the First Prince completed.

“It ends there,” the Black Queen said. “I’ll get it done, Cordelia. I know the stakes. I’ll muster the East and we’ll come with its full array of war.”

And the truth was that the First Prince believed her. Because the two of them had grown beyond enmity, even as enemies, and though they were not friends – would never be – a trust had grown between them. You could only share the burden of the world on your back with someone for so long before you took to them, even a little.

“We don’t have long left,” Cordelia quietly admitted. “We are giving ground on all fronts now. And the southern principalities are beginning to buck my authority, slowly but surely. I expect there will be defections before you return.”

There was only so long people were willing to have the lifeblood squeezed out of them to support a war they’d never seen with their own eyes. And though Cordelia had pushed through the Highest Assembly measures that would buy the realm a few more months, the hard measures she’d relied on to see it done had made her enemies.

“You’re keeping up the sky with your back, Hasenbach,” the Black Queen replied, tone oddly gentle. “I don’t expect the impossible of you. If it were anyone else in your seat, this war would already be lost.”

“We might lose it anyway,” Cordelia said, and hesitated.

It was now, she thought or never.

“The ealamal,” the First Prince said. “I want to find out what it does with Judgement silenced. In case…”

In case they lost the war, she left unsaid. The Black Queen grimaced.

“You want a test,” she said.

Cordelia nodded. Added nothing more.

“Fuck,” Catherine Foundling cursed, leaning back into her seat.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Crows take me. Do it.”