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T he truth of the matter lives somewhere between devotion and foolhardiness, right at the midpoint of yearning and valor. Although don’t tell Mer that right now or he’ll die.

Mer, an otherwise rational being, has apparently been so destabilized by the sudden reappearance of Lady Lilari Barzya, Countess of Setain, in his life that he’s managed to achieve complete disregard for not only his vocation, but also the paltry matter of life and/or limb.

Why, after all, risk everything Mer’s worked so terribly hard for – indeed, the variety of indignities he’s suffered by the profound personal compromise that is his loyal service to Moromaso, the Duke of Gonjain; to whom, by the way, Lady Lilari Barzya is now betrothed, rendering everything all the more upsetting – when he could have lived a long life unencumbered by disaster, disrepute, or distress?

The only plausible conclusion one can draw from Mer’s split-second decision to intervene in LADY LILARI BARZYA(!)’s kidnapping is that he wants – he evidently craves – the opportunity to do something so hopeless and stupid it ruins him for life.

Is it clinical, perhaps? Madness, or the like?

Is he just tired of catering to Moromaso’s ill-begotten imperial wealth, his craven lifestyle, the never-ending cycle of indiscretions that invariably become Mer’s job to dutifully sort?

Is Mer bored , is that the problem? The nature of his work as an imperial scribe (soon to be ordained by the Aramisman Brotherhood, provided Moromaso keeps to his word) is highly methodical, mind-numbingly so.

In order for Mer to perform his work, he must find a very quiet room – so quiet that nothing worth doing could possibly be happening within a radius of at least fifty feet – and he has to think about absolutely nothing except the task at hand.

No wandering around in his memories of what LaDy LiLaRi bArZyA (he can’t keep doing this; when he’d known her, prior to the magical epiphany that has been Imalian imperial governance, she was simply Lilari, not a lady, not a Barzya, barely even ‘of Setain’) had once been.

The efficacy of scribal magic depends, necessarily, on clarity of purpose – that is, single-mindedness to the point of forgetting even to breathe.

Survival is not always a given. It is barely, truth be told, a necessity. Scribes fall down dead all the time.

Not that he’s going to say any of that to Lilari.

Even after Mer, through a yawn, catches a hissing tone of danger from the drawing room when he arrives, concealed by the servants’ entrance, to deliver the nightly spells; even after he clears his mind as best he can from the dankness of the hidden corridor and scribbles the Imalian word for ‘explosion’ onto a slip of parchment; even after he slides the spell into the room, resulting in a very loud bang, a great deal of property damage, a dead intruder, and a very stunned Lilari – who says only “Mer?” in a barely audible croak that spiritually resembles Mer’s interior echoing of LLLLAAAADDDYYY LLLIIIILLLAAAARRRIIIII BBBBAAARRRRZZZYYAAA – even then, Mer still can’t think of a better explanation for his actions than a lie.

Which is somewhere between cowardice and coping mechanism.

“Hazards of the profession,” he pants.

At the present point in time, Mer and Lilari have stolen a horse.

One horse, singular, because Mer can’t actually ride a horse, and the scribe thing has its limits.

For example, Mer can’t write down the word ‘horse’ in Imalian and expect to be capable of doing it (it would produce a horse).

He could conceivably write the word ‘learn,’ but who knows how long that would take; too amorphous, not necessarily instantaneous.

If he writes the word ‘ride’ there’s no real guarantee he’ll ever stop riding, and who knows how long his concentration would even hold before he simply dropped dead of exhaustion.

Really, this is the reason being a scribe is so stupid, and why Mer has continued working for Moromaso despite disliking nearly every bone in the man’s body, because entrance to the Aramisman Brotherhood at least presents access to magic that’s actually useful.

Unfortunately, the Brotherhood is so exclusive it involves a rigid moral code that’s characteristically Imalian.

What a dreary hellhole the continent must be.

The pseudo-religious orders and purity of thought and noble service are compulsory requirements for initiation.

(How else, Mer supposes, could the worldly, scholarly elite be joined by a lowly scribe, particularly one who exists only by the grace of a wealthy, pious patron?)

The point is, post-rescue, Mer lies. He claims his leap to action in Lilari’s defense is required by some imaginary scribal code of conduct.

Heavily implying that he’s undergone reputable combat training at some or any point in his life.

Flagrantly suggesting he might make a worthy bodyguard as they ride away from his mess and toward her prospective safety, a journey that spans the remaining shrouded hours of the night.

***

So deep in his lies is Mer that he hasn’t even considered whether Lilari might also be lying.

Which she is. And this is the problem with imperial ethics, which Lilari would have gamely pointed out if Mer had asked.

But instead, her mind was screeching MMMEEEEEEERRRRR!

! as if all the angels in which her dead husband so improbably believed had touched down from on high with a personal blessing.

A chance to turn back time, to try to set things right.

But that’s not what this is. It can’t be, and it won’t. Because for Lilari, the truth has no business in this equation. The only way out of this mess she’s made is a man, one who could conceivably be Dometico, and Mer’s the only one in line.

Ironically, Dometico wouldn’t have happened at all if not for Mer – Mer the beacon, Mer the silver lining of Lilari’s shadowed past. Isn’t that hysterical?

Anyway, they digress. Right now, as they ride strenuously through the night, Mer pretends to be capable while Lilari pretends to be innocent, and they both pretend not to be aware of the proximity of their beating hearts, hers felt through his chest. His through her spine.

***

More sad, undignifying truths: Mer doesn’t know how to use a sword or a knife or his fists.

Theoretically, anyone with even a drop of proclivity for magic could do what Mer can, provided they were allowed – or so Mer would say, modesty being one of the core doctrines of the Aramisman Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood puts a great deal of emphasis on service.

The tenets of fraternity: loyalty (no empire could survive without it), service, and purity.

In exchange for transcending to a higher plane of humanity, the Brotherhood are functionally sorcerers.

Mer can write things down, sure, a glorified clerk.

But the Aramisman Order is capable of real magic, the kind that doesn’t require a quiet room and proper hydration, and anyway, he doesn’t have anything worth staying for here.

Or at least he didn’t, until now.

No, he still doesn’t. Lilari is marrying his employer and Mer is still Mer, no matter what happens today.

Mer is thinking about all this (or rather, trying not to think about this) when he and Lilari finally stop in the crispness just before dawn.

Presently, fog obscures the bustling port of Setain, as the Imalians call it.

Eristoh is (was) a chain of islands whose ports make it so valuable – worth throwing money at or dying over, depending on who you ask.

When Mer wonders aloud why he and Lilari have returned to Setain for refuge, but not to Lilari’s estate there, he suffers instant retribution.

“My husband has a son from his first marriage,” Lilari replies without feeling.

She doesn’t even look at him. Instead, she pets the horse as if he’s the only male in the world with any compassion at all.

Ah. Of course, Lilari needs to marry Mer’s revolting boss (gods save him etc.

etc.). Her husband is dead and now she has nothing.

She couldn’t have inherited land or money, even if her husband had thought to set it aside.

So, she needs one man to talk to another man and offer a substantial sum in transaction, or as substantial as can be expected when the person in question is a woman, a widow, and Eristo’ah, all of which count heavily against her price.

Which does beg a second question. Mer coughs, through which he manages vaguely to form the words: “Explain the…er…kidnapping?”

Lilari turns to Mer with a look of dark amusement. “You think I’m not worth kidnapping?”

“I didn’t say that,” offers Mer. Humbly, purely, idiotically. “I just meant—”

“No, put it in explicit terms, please,” she says.

Her beauty is a savage otherworldliness, a momentary collapse in what is, or can possibly be, real.

Her eyes, dark as the night, flash incandescent with fearsome fury.

“I’m not worth any money, so why would anyone go through the effort of kidnapping me? Is that it?”

Mer wants to curl up and die, this goes without saying. “I beg,” he states, quite literally, “your pardon. I only meant—”

“I think we both know what you meant,” Lilari snaps, and strides dismissively away.

***

More sad, petty truths: Lilari isn’t insulted at all.

It’s a perfectly logical question. It’s not a flattering question, but she can’t blame the man she’s leading to his death for questioning things when they don’t make sense.

None of this makes sense! She still doesn’t understand why Mer even offered to protect her.

Not that it matters what his reasons are, because at the heart of his unflattering assumption, he’s correct: she needs him.