— POV: Arlienne —
A bright, sunny morning.
The kind poets write about. All golden light and birdsong and the smell of dew on stone. I've read perhaps forty poems about mornings exactly like this one and found every single one of them tedious.
I sit by the window with my tea and observe the servants rushing past the doorway in that particular panicked shuffle they adopt when something has gone wrong and they haven't yet decided whose fault it is.
Footsteps uneven. Breathing audible from three rooms away. One of them nearly walks into a wall.
The new maids still cannot make a proper cup of tea. At this point I have moved past frustration into something closer to academic fascination. It takes a specific kind of consistency to fail at the same task every single morning without variation. There is almost an artistry to it.
I sip the terrible tea and wait.
A knock. Then the particular silence of someone standing outside a door and reconsidering their life choices.
The old servant steps in. I believe his name is Willhem. He has the expression of a man who has rehearsed what he's about to say several times and has only just realized none of the rehearsals went well.
His face is pale. His hands are doing that trembling thing humans do when they want you to understand they are suffering without having to say it directly.
"My, my." I set the cup down and regard him with mild interest. "You look as though something has bitten you. Tension really isn't good for a man your age, Willhem."
He opens his mouth.
"It's-- ah-- Robb, my lady. If it please you."
Robb. I consider this.
"Is it." I pick up the tea again. "My apologies."
I don't particularly apologize, but the syllables are expected and cost me nothing.
He clears his throat and tries again, steadying himself with the visible effort of someone walking a rope bridge in wind.
"My lady, it's… it concerns your brother."
"He escaped, didn't he."
Silence.
The morning light is warm. A bird lands on the outer sill, decides it has made a mistake, and leaves. Relatable.
"You… knew, my lady?"
"I suspected." I turn the teacup slowly in my hands, watching the light catch the rim. "Emerion has never once accepted something he didn't choose. The marriage was always going to be the thing that finally made him move. I'm mildly surprised it took until last night and not the moment Father finished his sentence."
"But should we not send someone after him? Are you not--"
"Worried?" I glance at him with genuine curiosity. "Why would I be worried? He left. That was always the more interesting outcome." I set the cup down. "Besides, there's no time for a search. I suspect you didn't come in here simply to tell me my brother has run away, Robb."
He blinks at the correct name. A small victory for him.
"No, my lady. There's… there's more." He draws a breath. "House Sunfury. From Lagrimor. They've been spotted moving toward our eastern port. A warship. Your father didn't believe it at first the marriage alliance should have guaranteed their cooperation but now with your brother gone…"
He trails off, as though the conclusion is too heavy to carry to the end of the sentence.
I carry it for him.
"Father is now worried the alliance is dead and Sunfury knows it." I fold my hands in my lap. "But consider the timeline, Robb. My brother left last night. We learned of it this morning. The public knows nothing there has been no announcement, no gossip, no time for word to travel to a foreign house before dawn."
I tilt my head. "So. How does Sunfury know the marriage is off?"
I let the silence stretch. It's a kindness, really giving him the space to arrive at the answer on his own. Some people find it patronizing. Most of those people are simply slow.
His eyes widen.
"We were… betrayed?"
"Bingo." I allow a small, satisfied smile. "Your brain cells continue to function, Willhem."
"Robb, my lady."
"Yes." A pause. "Robb."
I rise from the chair and pull on my gloves, slow and deliberate, finger by finger. Outside, the beautiful stupid morning continues its performance light on the water, clouds moving at a leisurely pace, entirely indifferent to the fact that someone in this nation handed Sunfury the exact moment to strike.
Someone patient. Someone who understood that removing the marriage piece would leave the eastern flank exposed before we could rotate the board.
Someone who had been watching us for quite some time.
I find that more interesting than alarming. Fear is for people who haven't already begun to solve the problem.
"Tell Father I'll be there shortly." I smooth my sleeve and move toward the door. "And Robb do breathe. You're considerably less useful to me unconscious."
He bows and retreats.
I stand alone for one quiet moment.
Arlienne, their greatest strategist, never predicted this.
I can already hear Pristilia saying it. That particular satisfied lilt.
My smile sharpens just slightly at the corners.
How delightful. An actual problem.
I haven't had one of those in weeks.
—POV: Emerion —
Pristilia's eyes locked onto me not the crowd, not the soldiers, not the burning harbor. Me specifically and a cold pressure coiled in my chest.
Panic. Sharp and immediate.
We couldn't fight. Not here, not with these numbers. Even if we somehow managed to hold our ground, casualties were guaranteed. The old merchant would be caught in the middle of it.
I wasn't willing to pay that price.
The green-haired youth stepped forward before I could speak, his smile so painfully forced it almost hurt to watch.
"Your Highness." He bowed with the practiced ease of someone used to dealing with difficult customers. "We are just merchants. It's our honor that you grace us with your presence."
I stared at the side of his face.
Is he seriously trying to flatter her? She has two hundred soldiers behind her and a general with eight arms. What exactly is the plan here?
Pristilia tilted her head with that particular elegance that belongs equally to nobility and to predators.
"Merchants," she repeated, as if tasting the word and finding it mildly interesting. "You have manners, at least." The fan lifted, hiding the lower half of her smile. "But flattery won't get you anywhere, darling."
The youth's smile stayed fixed. His jaw tightened slightly.
"Do you do business in this area?" she continued, fanning herself slowly, eyes drilling into him.
"Mostly, yes, Princess. We do."
"Any direct connections to noble houses?"
The old merchant stepped forward before his nephew could answer. His voice was steady despite the fear behind it the courage of a man who has lived long enough to know when to put himself in front of someone younger.
"No, Princess. No direct connections. We are small merchants, nothing more."
Pristilia hummed. A soft, thoughtful sound.
Then her fan swung lazily, almost carelessly and pointed directly at me.
"Then why," she said, "do you have a noble with you?"
The cold in my chest dropped several degrees.
How.
I was wearing plain clothes. She had never seen my face. There was no crest, no signet ring, nothing that should have marked me as anything other than someone passing through a market at the wrong time.
Everything around us went very still.
"I think you're mistaken," I said, keeping my voice even.
Her expression didn't shift. Not even a flicker.
"Your hands," she said simply, snapping the fan shut and stepping closer. She reached out and turned my right hand over before I could think to move it examining the palm, the fingers, the skin the way someone reads a document they've seen the format of before. "No calluses. Not from labor, not from weapons work. The skin is even, well-maintained.
Someone has always handled the rough parts of living for you." Her thumb pressed lightly at the base of my fingers. "And yet you carry that staff like it belongs to you, which means private training. Indoor. Controlled."
She released my hand and stepped back.
"Plain clothes, but the stitching at your collar is too fine for a merchant."
Her eyes moved to my face. "You're not on the border, even though your nation is at war and anyone with military training has been deployed. Which means you're either exempt or you've never been considered for service at all."
A pause. "You were kept somewhere. Protected. Maintained."
She smiled.
"The hands never lie. Nobles spend their whole lives learning to control their faces. Nobody ever thinks about their hands."
I had no answer for that.
"We could use you,"
she said pleasantly, as if discussing a trade arrangement. "In our negotiations with Ateris."
"And what makes you think I'd agree?"
She glanced barely a glance, almost gentle toward the green-haired youth and his uncle.
"I'm quite sure someone like you doesn't want anything unfortunate to happen to your companions."
I looked at them both. The youth had gone very still. The old merchant's hands were tight at his sides.
She was right. She knew she was right. The slight tilt of her head said she had already accounted for this before she opened her mouth.
"I'd also suggest," she added, snapping the fan open again, "that you stop looking past me. I noticed you studying the general." She tilted her head toward the eight-armed figure behind her. "He is exactly as dangerous as he looks. More so, actually."
I glanced at the general despite myself. The mana radiating off him was quiet and dense, the kind that didn't announce itself the kind that didn't need to.
I clenched my fist.
"Fine," I said. "I'll come with you. For the negotiation. But you give me your word that these two won't be harmed."
"You have the word of Pristilia Sunfury." She said it lightly, but something in her tone settled into place with the weight of something she actually meant.
"Your companions will not be touched."
I exhaled slowly and stepped forward.
"You can't just go with her." The green-haired youth caught my arm, voice low and urgent. "We can find a way out of this if we move fast, if we--"
"It's fine," I said quietly.
I didn't look at him. If I looked at him I might start weighing the odds again, and I'd already made my decision.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and took my staff. The wood left my hand and I felt the absence of it immediately, a strange hollow weight.
Pristilia watched with that faint, satisfied curve at the corner of her mouth.
I walked toward her and did not look back.
Maybe this was always what I was a piece on someone else's board, moved from one square to the next by hands more patient than mine.
I had run from one cage this morning and walked into another before noon.
But at least this time, I had chosen it.
That had to count for something.