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There are many contradictory stories about the day Akeisa fell. Official Imperial history tells us that King Vylanar was captured while abandoning his people on a ship filled with riches. I suspect this to be an embellishment of General Akeisa’s meant to demoralize the local population. However, local legends of the King’s bravery are equally suspect. An objective scholar must acknowledge the most likely truth: the King and Queen were given ample time to agree to a peaceful resolution and the full benefits of Imperial citizenship, and in their stubborn shortsightedness condemned their people to a bloody and ultimately futile battle.

Akeisa: A Comprehensive History (Volume Two)

by Guildmaster Klement

Gwynira’s study wasn’t a large or particularly welcoming room. It was ... generic. There were no personal touches, nothing to suggest that her preferences had in any way materially altered it. It featured a large fireplace, rather too large for the room, with several chairs arranged near it, an imposing desk, and shelves laden with books set into the stone walls. Everything was rather dull looking, though Aleksi supposed that was more to blame on his fading vision than on Gwynira’s listless attempts at decorating. A gargantuan fish with a vicious spike protruding from its head had been mounted and hung above the fireplace, and the main part of the floor had been covered with what looked like the skin of a North Sea tiger.

Or perhaps these poor dead animals were her bloodthirsty personal touches. That would certainly make his job—convincing her not to murder him and his envoy on the spot—a bit more difficult.

But Aleksi had always enjoyed a challenge. He spared the tiger’s snarling face a grimace of commiseration, then cleared his throat. “Reporting as requested, Grand Duchess. We need to talk.”

Gwynira turned, not moving from her spot before the fireplace. She was flanked by her guard, who glowered silently, and her seneschal, who was rather more vocal with his displeasure.

“You have some nerve,” he spat as he stalked toward the door. “To come here and make demands —”

“No, he’s right, Jaspar,” Gwynira cut in calmly. “We do need to talk.”

The guard spoke for the first time, his voice low and rumbling. “Your guest is armed, Your Grace. Unacceptable.”

“But easily remedied. Arktikos, was it?” Aleksi unbuckled the belt around his hips and held it out along with his scabbard. “Please, take it.”

The hulking man accepted the scabbard and examined it, as if it might explode in his mistress’s hands. Finally, reluctantly, he bowed his head and presented it to Gwynira.

Rather than taking it, she pulled the sword from its scabbard and regarded it thoughtfully. Reflections of the firelight danced off the blade as she hummed. “Created by magic?”

“Merely enchanted,” Aleksi answered. “The blade itself was crafted long ago, by the finest bladesmith in the Sheltered Lands. My friend Inga layered in spells to make it lighter and stronger, but the sword’s functionality is unchanged. It is exactly as it appears—a sword.”

“Inga,” she repeated. “I know that name. She’s also called the Witch.” Gwynira’s gaze flicked up to Aleksi’s face. “Sorin had one of those.”

“I remember.” He managed to suppress a shudder, but his voice almost cracked, so he took a moment to steady it. “I believe we both do.”

“Indeed.” Gwynira placed the naked blade on the small table between the two chairs. “For your sake, I hope yours is nothing like Varoka.”

Had that been her name? Aleksi had never even wondered, only referred to her in the screaming quiet of his mind as the Betrayer’s witch .

“No,” he said finally. “Inga is fascinated by possibilities, and her curiosity knows no bounds. But she’s a healer, and she isn’t cruel. She would never knowingly inflict harm on another without very good reason.”

Gwynira tilted her head. “You don’t believe Varoka had very good reason to harm you?”

“Of course she did. War is war, after all. But she did not seem to mind that you were also on the field of battle, and would be harmed by her strike.” He shook his head. “Inga would never sacrifice one of her friends.”

She laughed. “Presuming, of course, that Varoka and I fit in that category.”

“Not a safe presumption, I take it?”

“Far from.” She gestured to one of the chairs. “Do sit.” As Aleksi complied, she turned to her seneschal and watchful guard. “Leave us.”

Sir Jaspar protested at once. “Your Grace, surely you don’t—”

“Why, Jaspar.” She eyed him mildly. “If I did not know better, I might think you considered me unequal to the task before me and in desperate need of your particular assistance.”

“Of course not—”

“Then perhaps you think I cannot fend off a single unarmed attacker.” Her eyes flashed. “That I need your very human protection.”

He blanched. “I would never—”

“Excellent. Then I will see you in the morning.”

The man huffed with agitation—and pinned Aleksi with a vicious glare—but he did as she bade, leaving the room after a quick, almost violent bow.

The hulking guard was silent, but no less reluctant to quit the room. He simply stared at Gwynira with patent concern and did not move.

Finally, she sighed softly. “Go, Arktikos. It will be fine.”

The gentle urging worked. He nodded once and followed after Jaspar, closing the door quietly behind him.

“It will be, will it not?” Gwynira asked as she retrieved two glasses and began to fill both with a rich red liquid from an ornate crystal decanter. “Fine, that is. Or have I lied most egregiously to my personal guard?”

At least Aleksi had the truth on his side. “I wish you no harm. Sachielle considers you a friend, and who am I to argue with the Dream?”

Gwynira passed him one of the drinks. “And what of your companion?”

“Einar?” The liquid, which turned out to be wine, was almost thick with cold, and Aleksi realized that the decanter was not crystal at all, but ice. “He has sworn to me that he came here only as a servant of the Siren. This is his family’s homeland, yes, but not his. Not anymore.”

She settled into the chair opposite his. “And you believe him? You trust him?”

“I do. On both counts.”

His sword still gleamed on the table between them, and Gwynira’s shrewd gaze lingered on it as she swirled the wine in her glass. “And your other companion? The nymph?”

“Naia? She is a young god, new born and—as I am sure you noticed—rather guileless.”

“Or a truly superb actress.”

Oh, Aleksi should have seen this coming. Einar may have had the might of tradition and birthright behind him, but Naia possessed the sort of sheer power that could challenge a god. “She means you no harm, either.”

Gwynira tilted her head back and forth as she considered that. “Well, she did begin her diplomatic visit with a grand display of force.”

Truth, Aleksi. “She was worried,” he told Gwynira softly. “Anxious that she not appear weak, lest that weakness endanger her friends in the future.”

“And you and the long-lost prince allowed her to take sole responsibility for your collective safety?”

“Not us,” he corrected. “I mean her particular friends, Sachi and Zanya.”

Gwynira laughed again. “And how exactly am I to harm Creation itself? Menace the very embodiment of Destruction?”

He sipped his wine. “Your former emperor did a fine job of both.”

All traces of amusement fled, and Gwynira pulsed red, sharp and metallic, like biting a fork. Like blood. “Sorin created me,” she said stiffly. “I never had a choice of whether to associate with him. Can you say the same?”

“No, I cannot.” The memories had been somewhat dulled by the passage of thousands of years, but Aleksi could still remember Sorin as he had been— the Builder . Strong, capable. He had been good, once, back before envy and thwarted ambitions had twisted him into something violent and unrecognizable. “I’m sorry.”

Gwynira blinked at him, startled. “For what?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “That you didn’t have that choice, perhaps. Or that you never had a chance to know him ... before.”

She flashed red again, an emotion beyond anger or rage. Pure, bloody hatred. And she whispered her answer with the fervency of a dying prayer. “I wish I’d never known him at all.”

There was a deep well of loss inside her, a chasm of pain so agonizing and endless that Aleksi wanted to turn away from it. Instead, he caught and held her gaze. “I don’t blame you one bit.”

For several long moments, silence. Then Gwynira looked away. “So. You have known betrayal—for that is what you call Sorin, yes? The Betrayer?” At Aleksi’s nod, she pursed her lips. “Did you verify the exiled prince’s claims, then? Peer into his soul and pluck the truth from his heart?”

“I did not.”

She exhaled sharply. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway—not without his consent.”

He could not let that stand. “One cannot consent to such intrusion. The mere act of asking is tantamount to coercion. Only after a ready and eager invitation would I ever even consider it.”

“I see. So if this scorpion does sting, he shall sting us both.” She smiled. “Acceptable.”

Aleksi wanted to argue, but thought better of it. He imagined this was precisely how Sorin’s court had operated—through the security and threatened assurance of mutual annihilation. It would be familiar to her, comforting in its own way.

Satisfied, Gwynira finished her wine and leaned forward, as if to set her empty glass on the table between them. But her gaze snagged once more on his sword, and she froze as another wave of pain filled the stiflingly hot air between them. The furious red remained, only now it was streaked through with onyx sorrow.

“It’s a lovely blade,” she murmured. “Truly exquisite work. I’ve not seen its equal since ...”

She lapsed into heavy silence, the kind that brimmed with confessions. Aleksi could almost hear their desperate wings fluttering against the cage of secrecy, and he held his tongue. Just in case.

But she only shook her head and reached once more for the frosty decanter. “Shall we drink more?”

Gwynira’s pain was familiar, a place and a song and a feeling as fixed in Aleksi’s memory as his own face. She had lost someone dear to her, the love of her life—just as he once had. But though Aleksi still felt his long-dead lover’s absence, his pain had been transmuted by the years, had both deepened and mellowed into a bittersweet sort of ache. Gwynira’s remained sharp, discordant. A jagged, freely bleeding wound that had not knitted up, much less healed.

But she said no more, and Aleksi followed her lead. He finished his wine and offered his glass to her with a nod. “Yes, let’s.”