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Thank the Light that my father has returned to the Tenth House.

The wedding contract he and Lord Orlof had forged was done so without any input of mine, of course.

I didn’t even know the boy’s name to whom I was promised—he remained deliberately unnamed, according to Caleb, in any official records kept by the First House.

But I would have remembered the name Tennet, if I’d ever run across it in any documentation on the Twelfth House.

Theirs was a strange holding, as close to the eastern border as we are at the Tenth House, but tucked into far less hospitable terrain.

The Tenth House was generally considered the official point of welcome for anyone traveling from the Imperium, whereas the Twelfth was only the destination of marauders bent upon slipping into the Protectorate unseen or unchallenged.

Not that the Twelfth House deliberately welcomed them, of course, but from every snide comment I’d been able to glean from traveling bards, they simply couldn’t do much more than look the other way.

I have a hard time believing that the square-jawed warrior who’s listening so attentively to Caleb’s ongoing patter about the Tournament of Gold would’ve looked the other way.

He’s as big as he is arrogant, like most every warrior knight I’ve met.

So where in the Light has he been all these years?

How is it that Caleb had never heard of him; my friend who’s pored over every scrap of knowledge about every House, from the first through the Twelfth?

How is it that my father fully believed that he was sending me to a child , a son so captured beneath the thumb of his father that I would be put in my place by the elder Orlof for years before taking over as the mistress of my own house?

Because mark me plain, my father wasn’t interested in doing me any great service in marrying me off.

He wanted to be rid of me, yes, and he had jewels to spare for my dowry, but the Twelfth House must have paid a bride price for me that was worth more to my father than the ornaments that he suffered me to carry on my person as I made the trek through the mountains.

I scowl. Clearly, I haven’t given this wedding arrangement enough thought.

What is it that the Twelfth House had to trade for me that my father would have thrown in a mountain of jewelry and still felt like he had gotten the better part of the bargain?

Lord Lemille of the Tenth wouldn’t have made the agreement otherwise, no matter how eager he was to be rid of me.

I don’t even like thinking about my father, and doing so now puts me in an even worse mood as Darkwing strides so fast up the winding mountain path that he nearly breaks into a trot.

When my father had finally quit the First House to return to his own fortress with a brace of fighting men and the consideration that Fortiss settled upon him for his trouble, I’d thought myself well and truly rid of him.

Perhaps that belief was too quickly formed.

These thoughts are my companions all the way up the mountain until at last we ride through the village that fronts the First House.

Unlike the reception during the Tournament of Gold, our arrival today merits barely a flicker of interest. There is actual living and work to do when the pomp and glory of the Protectorate’s royalty ceases its demands.

Still, much like in the town of Trilion, there is also the faintest undercurrent of nervous energy riding along the conversations and sideways glances between the residents of First Village as we pass by.

These people may not care about us specifically, but something remains very much on their minds.

Whether it’s the threat from the west or simply continued speculation about the long-term impact of the Tournament of Gold’s deadly melee on the Protectorate, I don’t know.

Further, I don’t want to know. Politics has never been a game I had the patience or discernment to play.

The moment we pass through the gates of the First House, however, my heart eases.

Fortiss himself stands at the top of the sweeping steps to the castle, garbed in gold and black, his cape lifting with the breeze.

There’s a smile on his face as our company approaches, but when his gaze shifts to me, I nearly choke on its intensity.

He’s changed. He’s definitely changed. Something has happened at the First House in the few short hours that I’ve been gone. Something he almost certainly won’t want to share with the newcomers from the Twelfth House.

I lean forward, my mind scrambling to figure out what has happened to him.

He looks the same as he ever has—tall, lean and well-muscled, with an arrogant twist to his mouth that echoes the smirk Lord Tennet wore so comfortably. As if the world had been fashioned as his handmaiden, willing to do his bidding at the merest word.

It’s a right and a power I’ve come into myself, having been banded to a Divh, but I wear that mantle with far less grace. Something else to work on.

But I’m not mistaken, I think. There’s an energy that suffuses Fortiss that’s different than the man I left in the small hours of the morning, the two of us breaking our fasts over an early strategy meeting.

He was determined to explore the endless scrolls that his predecessor had left behind, scrolls that whispered of the danger and the magic held beyond the Western Realms, scrolls that, presumably, also held some details about the extraordinary monsters that fought so ably and well, then consented to remain at our beck and call for centuries after.

We know ridiculously little about how that agreement came to be, and we must understand it better if we are to command the Divhs to help us in the battle that looms large to the west.

Has Fortiss discovered more about the Divhs? Has he stumbled into some magic that the former lord protector hoarded away; magic that could help empower us against the threat we know is coming? Had he?—

“Welcome to the First House, riders of the Twelfth!” Fortiss’s call is so bold it shakes me out of my racing thoughts as he moves down the steps, stopping halfway to extend one arm, as if to offer the whole of his castle to his guests.

“We offer you rest, hospitality, and camaraderie as we mark this glorious new dawn of the Protectorate.”

“We’ll accept it and leave you to your glorious dawn,” Tennet announces, the heavy brogue of his voice bouncing off the walls of the courtyard. “But we’re taking my wife back with us.”