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“Her Grace will not be coming down,”

said Lady Verr, eying Davi and Leonin with interest.

She was too much a creature of the capital to ask directly what happened, but Leonin could tell from the lift of her perfectly shaped eyebrows that she was putting pieces together.

There was nothing in the world like a Rose of Segoile.

“I’ll fetch supper for her,”

said Davi, glancing up at the second-floor windows with naked unhappiness, and swung back atop his horse.

“He ought to do something about that eyepatch,”

Lady Verr said once he was safely out of earshot.

“It gives him a rather thuggish air, at present.”

“I will tell him to acquire something appropriate to the dignity of a war veteran,”

Leonin replied, the rebuke as polite as if they were discussing the weather.

And while he did make a mental note to tell Davi that he needed something better than a rag tied around his head—the Duchess of Andelin’s guards could not look like Waterside street brutes—it only served to remind him that he was a guard.

Not a hallow.

Where had that come from? In his wildest dreams, Leonin had never imagined that Duchess Andelin might reject the idea of hallows altogether.

He hadn’t even known that option was on the table.

Surely His Grace wouldn’t allow it.

They had already come so far, and Leonin had been sure, now that the cleric had arrived, that it was only a matter of time until they made their oaths.

This was his dream.

The fleeting, illusory purpose he had searched for all his life.

It was all he could do to hold his tongue when the duchess finally emerged at noon the next day, looking pale and fragile, with swollen eyes.

But she had not come to speak to the men who wished to swear their souls to her, oh, no.

The common-born page boy was here for his poetry lesson.

Leonin took his usual position several yards away, his face expressionless.

She was a duchess.

In Segoile, it would never have occurred to him to expect an explanation.

He would have never dreamed of going up to the Duchess of Tries to question her notoriously eccentric behavior.

Frankly, he would have been more likely to question one of her purebred hounds. It wasn’t done. It would have been mannerless, uncouth, and inexcusable.

“My lady,”

said Davi, the instant the lesson was ended.

“Could we talk about what happened yesterday? We didn’t mean to upset you.

Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,”

she said, though she wouldn’t look at either of them.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t fair to both of you.

I should have spoken sooner.

I know you must be disappointed.”

“I would like to talk to you about it, my lady,”

Leonin replied quickly.

Inwardly, he was appalled; even if Duchess Andelin wasn’t good at hiding her emotions, Davi could at least be polite enough to ignore them.

But it had bought them this opportunity.

“If you will allow us?”

She nodded, and the two knights took their usual places on either side of her, seated on the high roots of the oak tree with a view of the valley and a carpet of crunching leaves around them.

It was the place they had often gone to discuss such things, and he hoped it would incline her to be open-minded.

“There are reasons why Sir Justenin and His Grace thought you ought to have hallows,”

Leonin began in his most reasonable tone.

“You must know how dangerous it is, even though you are of celestial lineage.

Few people in the Empire would dare harm you, but they might abduct you.

Someone without reverence for the stars might do worse.”

“I know what people might do.”

Her fingers knotted together in her lap, a habit that Leonin’s mother would have broken from his sisters in childhood.

“I don’t see why that means I must have hallows.”

“You might be separated from guards, my lady,”

he answered promptly.

“As you cannot be from your hallows.

At the word of the Emperor, or at the behest of the Temple, perhaps.

Or even if you just go somewhere that men are forbidden.

If we take oaths as hallows, we will no longer be considered men.”

“What?”

She looked up then, shocked.

“W-why? Where did you hear that? Why would you ever want to?”

“It was in one of Sir Justenin’s books.”

And now he was sorry he had brought it up.

“The thought does not trouble me, my lady, I assure you.”

“Well, it troubles me,”

she said, looking sick.

“I don’t want that to happen to you because of me.

You should be safe and happy with families of your own.

I don’t want anyone to do that for me.”

“M’lady, way I see it, you’d be my family,”

Davi said gently.

“I would be pleased to share your name and get adopted into House Andelin.

I never thought it was right, what happened to His Grace.

I admire what you’re both trying to do here.

I don’t like anyone trying to stop it, especially with such dirty tricks. My own family’s safe, and there’s plenty of them to carry on my blood. You’d be the family I’d choose. When you think it’s right.”

“I know.”

She offered the older knight a weak smile.

“I guess that wouldn’t be so bad, if you meant the oath that way.

I just don’t want…”

She trailed off, her eyes flitting to Leonin, clear and transparent as glass, and he understood what she wasn’t saying.

She didn’t want to accept the oath from him.

“Why?”

The question burst out before he could stop it, gray fingers of fear and dread clawing him inside.

It was a struggle to maintain his polite, bland expression.

There was nothing more unseemly than a man who put his emotions on display.

“My lady.”

“Because you want to swear to the Duchess of Andelin,”

she said flatly.

“But after we die, I’ll just be me.

And you’ll be stuck following me forever.”

This made no sense to him at all.

Of course, he was swearing to a duchess.

That was who needed to be protected, and he wasn’t much concerned about what happened after he was dead.

Only a lifetime of careful circumspection kept him from saying as much.

“You told me you wanted to do it because it’d be hard,”

Davi prompted.

“That’s why you picked me, ain’t it?”

“Isn’t it.”

Leonin’s lips tightened.

Yes, he had been the one to approach Davi, even though the other man was the commonest sort of peasant, one-eyed and disreputable, and still the best swordsman in the barracks.

He had done it because Remin Grimjaw wanted two hallows for his wife, and Leonin would do anything to be one of them.

“If we must speak of this, my lady, I would prefer to do so privately.”

“Davi,”

she said after a moment.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my lady.”

Rising with an unfolding of long limbs, Davi shot Leonin a warning look and went to stand at a polite distance.

“I don’t understand why you won’t say it in front of him,”

Duchess Andelin said, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“If you’re my hallows, we’ll be together every day for the rest of our lives.

We won’t have any secrets.

You’ll know everything about me.”

“I will keep your secrets,”

he assured her quickly.

“That is part of the oath, to guard your dignity.

I have thought of that.

If you ever go to Segoile, I would be able to help you.

You are a princess as well as a duchess. There would be many expectations of you.”

She was silent for so long, Leonin worried that he had already lost the argument.

“It’s not about that,”

she said finally.

“All this time, I was only thinking about the oath itself.

The words.

But everyone has their own way of keeping it, even if they swore the exact same oath.

And everyone has their own reasons for swearing it, too. I…I won’t do it just because I’m the Emperor’s daughter, or Remin’s wife. And I don’t think you should swear it to me because of that, either. ”

Sometimes he forgot how smart she was.

“I said I wanted to do something difficult,”

he forced himself to say.

It was as if he was dragging the words out one at a time, dredging them from the bedrock of his soul.

He had gone to war, searching for them.

“I want…I want to do something that matters, Your Grace.”

It was nothing less than the deepest and most desperate wish of his heart, and she did not look impressed.

“My only skill is with my sword,”

he went on, feeling foolish.

“But what use is that in Segoile? What honor is there in war? I have thought about what we must learn, how we will train, incorporating other martial traditions.

We are all swordsmen here, but that is not the same as the skills needed to protect someone.

And if this is my talent, then this is how I will choose to use it.

Protecting you. Only the best will serve the House of Andelin. I want to set the standard. No, I want to challenge myself to become the standard. One day, I want to be able to stand between you and a dozen Remin Grimjaws.”

“You want to build something, too,”

she said unexpectedly.

“Yes.

Yes, I suppose I do.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way, but it was true.

“I want to build a tradition of the best guardsmen in the world, judged on their merit rather than their birth.

And only the best among them would have the privilege of becoming a hallow.

It is a privilege,”

he added.

“I do believe that.

To commit your whole life to someone is…a serious thing.

I meant to earn it.”

More silence.

The breeze lifted, chilly and moist with coming rain.

“I guess if Remin had said he wanted hallows for our…our children, I wouldn’t have argued,”

she mused, her brows puckering.

“But it would have been wrong.

It would have been an oath to their position instead of them.

In that book Sir Justenin gave me, it was all important people that had hallows, geniuses and leaders and holy people, and people wanted them to live to finish their work, and that’s why they swore.

But I…I’m not important, myself.”

“But you are,”

he protested automatically, and she silenced him with a glance.

“Leonin, I am nothing,”

she whispered.

“What am I without my father, without Remin? I don’t know anything.

I only know how to read because my mother taught me before she died.

I’ve been pretending, all this time, to hide it from you. ”

“But why would you hide it from me?”

he asked, bewildered.

“Because you think I’m important,”

she retorted.

“But you don’t know me at all.

You don’t know anything about me, I’m not special, I’m not important, I’m not anything, and you want to swear your soul to me!”

Leonin drew a breath to protest, if only out of simple manners, but the look on her face stopped him.

So naked and despairing, so raw that it might have been the lost cry of his own heart.

“But I want to be,”

she said, lifting her eyes to his.

“Not…important, I mean.

I want to deserve it.

I have to do something by myself to make everyone proud.

Remin, and his knights, and you and Davi, and everyone. I’ve been trying, but it’s so hard, and there’s so much I have to learn—”

“You can,”

Leonin managed.

He was so wrong-footed, he hardly knew what to say.

“If I have learned nothing else of you, my lady, it is that you can learn.

Perhaps faster than Sir Justenin would prefer.

And we will help you. I will help you. Does His Grace know?”

“No,”

she said bleakly.

“I will tell him when he comes home.

I was going to talk to him about you and Davi, anyway.”

“Then you mean to refuse us,”

he said, his heart sinking.

But unexpectedly, she shook her head.

“Maybe…not,”

she said.

“You said you wanted to set the standard.

A hard standard, based on merit, not birth.”

“Yes…”

he said, cautious.

“Then apply your standard to me,”

she said fiercely.

“If you have to follow my soul around the stars for eternity, I should be worth following, shouldn’t I?”

Leonin gaped at her.

“You mean you want me to decide when you are worthy to swear the oath?”

he asked, dumbstruck.

She nodded.

“Yes.

That will be a hard test for you, won’t it? If you want to set the standard.

You can’t be dishonest about it, or go easy on me, or make excuses for me.

The best guardsmen in the world should only swear their swords to someone they believe in.”

He wanted to argue.

As soon as she put it in those terms, he knew that by his standards, it would be years before he could become her hallow.

Perhaps he never would.

What would this girl have to do, to earn the swearing of a soul? Especially when she was standing in the shadow of Remin Grimjaw? And His Grace was sure to disagree, the whole point was to protect her now. But…

What she had said.

Someone they believe in.

It rang so deep and so true, he could not protest.

This was something far greater than he had conceived.

A tradition of excellence not just in the hallow, but the one to whom they were bound. Each of them working to deserve the other. They would hold each other to account. They would make each other greater.

Could she do it? Leonin gazed at her, trying to shed the trained blindness he had learned in Segoile, the layers of rank and etiquette.

To see her , the timid young woman who slouched when she sat and fidgeted when she was nervous.

There was never a more unlikely hero than this girl.

“I…accept,”

he said, and was astonished to find his throat was tight.

He stretched out a hand to her and for the first time in his life tried to set aside all courtesies. “Ophele,”

he said.

“I will help you however I can.

Please endeavor to deserve me.”

“I will,”

she promised, and took his hand to seal the first oath between them.

* * *

“Our scouts have spotted smoke,”

said Sir Edemir a few days later, as he was ushered into the new public end of Ophele’s vast bedchamber.

“From the north.”

“So that is from…Meinhem?”

Ophele asked, quickly hiding her bit of sewing in her embroidery box.

The tests to her new resolve were coming quickly, but she had no choice but to try to meet this challenge.

“Yes.

Ortaire, with whatever survivors he found there,”

Edemir confirmed, taking a chair at Ophele’s small table.

Lady Verr was already pulling out quill and ink.

“All of them should be on their way back by now, and we should plan how we will receive them, Your Grace.

We’ve built a few outposts to watch for them, but it depends on the devils and the number of survivors as to how quickly they will travel.

A couple days, at least. Bram is taking wagons and horses to meet them.”

“The devils won’t get them?”

“It’s not likely, this late in the year.

But we should expect wounded, and all of them will be hungry.

Women, children, elders.

We’ve built some cottages on the north side of town…”

It was unclear how much of this was Ophele’s responsibility, in Remin’s absence.

Edemir had charge of the town, so most of these practical matters fell to him, but Ophele’s charge was the hospitality of the valley, and most of Remin’s ceremonial duties.

Rubbing her head, she tried to think past the ache in her temples.

She had not slept in a very long time.

“Has Genon enough help at the hospital?”

she asked, remembering the wounded men when Sir Huber had come back from Ferrede.

“Yes, my lady, he’s got a few journeymen to assist him, and squires to help with any heavy work among the wounded.”

“Lady Verr, you have some experience in healing, don’t you?”

Ophele remembered.

“I thought Duchess Ereguil said so.”

“I do have some small learning,”

said Lady Verr, looking up from her notes.

She was conscientious about documenting Ophele’s appointments.

“Do you think we will be needed to assist in that capacity?”

“Maybe,”

Ophele replied, at the same moment Edemir refused.

“My lady, His Grace wouldn’t like it,”

Leonin said from behind her, where he, Davi, and Elodie were standing along the wall.

“Why not?”

Ophele asked, confused.

“There might be a great many of them, mightn’t there? His Grace said there might be three hundred coming from Meinhem, and more in Nandre, and almost seven hundred coming with Sir Huber.

And I am supposed to look after them, if they are hurt and starved and cold—”

“The Duchess of Andelin commands the hands of others,”

said Lady Verr gently, holding up her own hands as if in evidence.

“And Remin said we will use our hands wherever they are needed, so I will,”

Ophele replied stubbornly.

“Will you see how many helpers Genon will need, Edemir? Oh, and we ought to warn Wen, he will be cooking for everyone…”

She trailed off, oblivious to the startled silence around her.

It was on the tip of her tongue to propose a feast to welcome the refugees, but some instinct made her hesitate.

She knew what it was to be denied, to see the banquet table spread out and know that she would never be allowed to partake.

These people would be cold, tired, hungry, wounded, maybe sick, and frightened to death.

It would not do to thrust the limited luxury of Tresingale in their faces.

Sir Edemir busied himself with the teakettle as she considered it.

By now, he was accustomed to presenting a problem, then giving her time to think about it.

Later, once everyone was home safe, they could celebrate.

For now, she would offer comfort, quiet, and consolation, to show the survivors that they were safe.

She knew how much that meant, and how hard it could be to believe that the danger was truly past.

“Have Master Balad and Madam Sanai warned to expect them,”

she said aloud.

“And Brother Oleare to offer them a blessing.

It would be good to have someone to show them around the town, once they’ve rested, and help them to settle…”

But that person could not be the Duchess of Andelin.

Ophele had already learned that lesson.

“Elodie,”

she said, turning to the girl, who was standing between Leonin and Davi like a third small guard.

“Do you think your mother would mind, if we asked for her help? Or is she too busy? It’s quite all right if she is.”

“Oh, no, my lady,”

Elodie replied instantly.

“She was wondering who was coming to live in all those cottages.”

“I’ll go home with you today and ask, then,”

Ophele said, quailing at the thought of facing Elodie’s formidable mother again.

The memory of their last meeting still stung.

“But only if she wants to, I wouldn’t want to disrupt her other work, at all.”

“No, I heard her tell Papa the other day that if she had to spend one more minute with her sewing basket, she was going to scream,”

Elodie explained.

“So, I bet she’ll like it.”

There was a small, suppressed explosion from Davi, but Ophele felt only deepest sympathy for Elodie’s mother.

Her own sewing was the most excruciatingly tedious thing she had ever done in her life.

“Elodie, you ought not tell such tales,”

Lady Verr said reprovingly.

“But clothes might be another concern, Your Grace.

If there is spare clothing to be had, it may be a good idea to have it on hand, just in case.”

“I can spare a few of my gowns,”

Ophele agreed.

She had more gowns now than she’d ever had.

“Only…maybe they won’t fit.

Could we get more from somewhere?”

“If nothing else, they could be tailored or cut down, Your Grace,”

said Lady Verr, which was a tactful way of saying Ophele’s wardrobe might do for children.

“I’ll gather what I can from the house.”

“We have some homespun put by in the storehouse,”

said Sir Edemir, making rapid notes on his paper.

“We have plenty of clothing for men, but not much for women and children.

We’ll have to remedy that.”

“And it will give them some small work, over the winter, once they are better,”

Ophele added.

“I am sure they will want to feel useful.

Please tell me when they arrive, I want to come and welcome them.”

“That…may not be a good idea, my lady,”

Sir Edemir said with obvious reluctance, and glanced pointedly at Elodie.

“Lady Verr,”

Ophele said after a moment.

“Would you take Elodie and see which of my gowns can be spared?”

As soon as the heavy door shut behind them, she looked expectantly at the knight.

“They might not be terribly grateful,”

Sir Edemir admitted.

“They won’t be their best after such a journey, and they will have had a very hard time of it.

They are likely to be angry.

They might feel as if they were…abandoned.”

She hadn’t thought of that.

Back in July, she and Remin had talked about the other villages, when his men had been testing and refining the caravan and mobile palisade.

She had worried for them then, and felt guilty that Remin hesitated to go, because of her.

But there had been so many other things to think about since.

“Were they abandoned?”

she asked quietly.

“No.”

He said it sharp and flat, but she had never seen the stolid Sir Edemir look so uncomfortable.

“I swear it to every star, my lady.

Jinmin tried to go, and he said it would be suicide.

We tried anyway in June and lost thirty men.

Six lost arms or legs. Rem still would’ve tried to go himself if we hadn’t argued him out of it. That many devils would’ve swarmed anything less than an army, and our army was needed on the border with Valleth. No. We could not go.”

But his broad face was red, and when Ophele glanced back at Davi and Leonin, she saw the same angry shame.

They had known, too.

They would have been involved in all those plans and attempts at rescue; they had understood all of this when she hadn’t even thought to question it.

She had been busy hiding under her blankets, too silly to be grateful for the small army that stood between her and the devils.

None of that would matter to the people of Isigne, Selgin, Meinhem, and Nandre.

“I—I still want to go,”

Ophele said.

If Remin was not here to face them himself, then she would have to stand in his place.

“They have a right to be unhappy, if they needed help and no one came.

Or at least, no one came quickly.

Sir Huber, Sir Ortaire, and Sir Rollon did go, as soon as they could. And it was very dangerous, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Your Grace, it was.”

It was as if she had given Edemir some absolution.

He shrugged his shoulders and straightened.

“Thank you.

I will send a message when we see a signal.”

When he was gone, Ophele sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.

Through the windows, she could see the forests and the faraway mountains, where gray clouds hung like a shroud.