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I need to speak to you privately, please.

The note was scrawled on a small scrap of paper, rolled up in a tight scroll and hidden under the edge of his dinner plate.

It was hardly the first time that Sir Miche of Harnost had received such an invitation.

Automatically, he transferred the note to his lap, noting the messy, childish handwriting.

Really, that was sufficient all by itself to identify the guilty party, but his eyes went to the small woman some distance down the supper table, who was doing her best to pretend he didn’t exist.

Ophele’s ears were scarlet.

You can find me in the stable before supper, read the rest of the message, and Miche flicked it into his sleeve, amused.

Of course, he was ever the obedient slave of a lady, but it wasn’t going to be easy to have a private word with the Duchess of Andelin.

Not even for Miche of Harnost, who modestly considered himself the cleverest man in the valley.

In the first place, everyone was busy from sunup to sundown.

Having discovered that his destiny lay in ditch digging, Miche was loathe to stop, especially since that troll Jinmin had suddenly decided he wanted to be Master Earthmover.

Miche would be damned if some upstart would best him, even if he was eight feet tall and built like a drawbridge.

Miche had charge of the east side diggers, Jinmin was on the west, and by the stars, they’d see who made it to the gatehouse first.

The lady was hardly less occupied, for all that she no longer worked at the wall.

Ophele had become a fixture in front of Remin on his big black horse, poking her small nose into all the business of the valley and offering her hands to anyone who had a use for them.

It did Miche’s heart good to see her so happy.

She had been a silent, solemn little shadow for so long, and he bitterly reproached himself that he had not intervened sooner.

This clumsy invitation meant she had grown brave enough to set her hands to the levers of the world.

How could he refuse her?

“…give us a hand at the gatehouse tomorrow?”

Bram was saying beside him, and Miche made some rapid mental calculations.

“Yes,”

he said, with such a dazzling smile that the other man bristled in instinctive alarm.

It was a perfect opportunity.

Miche spent the next day arranging matters to his satisfaction and wondering what she wanted.

The problem seemed obvious to him, but he wouldn’t have blamed Ophele for being confused; it would be a thorny challenge for any young woman, let alone the Exile Princess, and Remin was just lost.

He had kept his word.

He was trying.

Stars, he was succeeding, there were few endeavors in the world more warmly received by their beneficiary.

It had upset Miche terribly to realize it, but Ophele did not expect to be treated kindly.

Every gesture, no matter how small, was received with touching surprise, and she paid them back with smiles and thanks and little gifts of her own.

She and Remin were both being so careful around each other, tiptoeing forward with each new offering as if they were asking, is this all right? Are we all right? Is this what you want?

It was a vicious cycle that threatened to make them deliriously happy, and in the process was making Rem so wretched that Miche couldn’t believe no one else saw it.

But then, he knew Remin very well.

When Tounot had been barred from even writing to his former liege lord and boyhood friend, Miche had been the one to tell Remin the news.

While Juste was tending sheep in his monastery in the mountains, Miche had been tasting Remin’s food for poison.

And when old Duke Ereguil decreed it was time for his foster son to learn how to stand a watch, Miche was the one who stayed up all night to teach him how.

Rem was very good at hiding his feelings.

But sometimes, when he looked at Ophele, there was something so trapped and desperate in his eyes that it made Miche’s blood run cold.

He knew that look.

It was not a good thing when Remin Grimjaw felt trapped.

Miche went to the stables that evening to find Ophele grooming Master Eugene, a task she would not allow anyone else to perform.

Normally, Rem would already have been there with her, but through a series of minor manipulations, His Grace had been needed out at the wall.

Jinmin and his boys had run into a little trouble.

“…and your ears,”

she was saying as Miche entered the stable, a contented little burble of chatter that made him suspect she was used to talking to herself.

“I wonder if long ears are a sign of beauty among donkeys.

In Daitia, they go half naked except for these amazing hats—”

“How scandalous,”

Miche drawled, making her turn with a start.

He grinned.

“Evening, my lady.

Please tell me more about these hats.”

“You creep about like a cat,”

she said frankly, but she was smiling.

“They have a language of hats, in Daitia.

If you saw someone with a gray hat and gold trim, it might mean, I am sad and rich.”

That made him laugh, and he sat down on a convenient hay bale, laying his sword over his knee.

He was filthy and sweaty from the day’s digging and made a face as hay dust whiffed upward to stick to his bare arms.

“I wonder if we could adopt the custom,”

he said, entertained by the idea.

“Rem seems to be cannibalizing architecture and customs from half the nations in the known world.”

“No, you wouldn’t want to wear some of these hats.”

Mischief lurked in her eyes, a shy humor that she was just beginning to share.

“They have punishment hats.

People have to wear them for thievery or bribery or shirking work.”

“I will have you know that the east side crew has already surpassed yesterday’s digging.”

The subtle jibe made him smirk.

“We’ll have the north wall done before winter, you’ll see.”

“I know His Grace will be relieved.”

Her hands worked smoothly, brushing the donkey’s fuzzy gray flank.

“Sir Miche, I have been wondering, is there anything…troubling him?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“He seems so to me,”

she said, frowning.

“I wondered if it might be something to do with my…my father.

He wouldn’t tell me if there was, I guess, but everyone is being so careful to guard him, I thought maybe—”

“Everyone is always careful, my lady,”

Miche said somberly.

“There are many measures in place.

Rem’s never alone, even if it looks like he is.”

“I never thought about how complicated it must be,”

she admitted, exchanging her brush for a curry comb.

Miche had never seen a donkey so well-groomed as Master Eugene.

“But when I wanted to buy tea from Mr.

Guian, I thought, how can I tell if the tea is safe? Sir Tounot said Mr.

Guian could be trusted, so I bought it, and then I thought, how can I keep it safe? No one’s in the cottage most of the day.

If I left the tea there, how could I be sure someone didn’t sneak in and do something? I had to ask Master Wen to keep it for me. If we want tea, I go get it from him, one pinch at a time.”

Miche was actually impressed that she had thought it through so far.

And surprised that Wen had consented to be the Keeper of Tea.

“And Rem drinks it?”

he asked curiously.

She glanced at him, her forehead crinkling.

“Yes…”

She said slowly.

“I saw him sip.

He wouldn’t pretend to drink, would he?”

“He would.”

Even though he had come here to have precisely this conversation with her, Miche was still sorry to see her face fall.

“He’s good at it.

He likely spills a little while your back is turned.

Does he empty the cup?”

“No,”

she said quietly.

“I thought he would like it.

I was so careful to make sure no one could get to it.

Or is it because…”

She cut the words off, but Miche could read what she was thinking well enough.

Is it because I gave it to him?

“It’s not just you.”

Miche was sorry he’d ruined it for her now; if Rem had gone to the trouble of pretending to drink, he’d been trying not to hurt her feelings.

“Rem wouldn’t eat a haunch of mutton unless he’d been personally introduced to the sheep, I’m afraid.

You know he grew up on Duke Ereguil’s estate? Since he was eight.”

“Yes.”

“He was nine the first time someone poisoned him.

I wasn’t there, but Duchess Ereguil told me about it.

Windweed seeds, from Noreven.

It’s a nasty poison.

I hear it’s like lockjaw, the joints swell up and stiffen, and the muscle spasms are so bad, they’ll break bones.

And nothing stops the pain. He screamed for days. It was weeks before they could talk him into eating again.”

It still made Miche furious every time he thought about it.

Even in Segoile last year, Remin had frequently gone hungry rather than eat food from someone he couldn’t trust.

Ophele stared at him, aghast.

“But I suspect it’s a nearer trouble,”

Miche went on, sighing.

“There was a girl he liked when he was fourteen, in Rospalme.

Mind, he wasn’t old enough to be courting, even if the girl’s father would allow it, which of course, no sane man would.

She was older than he was, sixteen or so.

Merrienne, that was her name.

It seemed every bit as harmless as you’d expect. Rem used to give her flowers. Just shoved them at her because every time she talked to him, he’d turn red and clam up. Couldn’t say a word.”

“Really?”

Though it was obvious that something terrible was coming, she couldn’t help smiling.

It was sweet to imagine Remin as a blushing boy.

“That was another reason I didn’t have much hope for the match,”

Miche said dryly.

“He was going to have to learn to say whole words out loud first.

But she seemed to like him.

Took the flowers, anyway.

They kept meeting accidentally in town, and finally she got him to agree to slip out one night to see her.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.

I probably would’ve let him go, if I’d known.”

Miche was candid in acknowledging his own faults.

“I just would’ve followed him.

But he didn’t breathe a word of it, and when I looked in on him that night, he was gone.

I imagine he was sick of being guarded all the time, and didn’t like to have anyone listening while he was trying to woo his first sweetheart.”

“And she betrayed him?”

Ophele asked, her eyes round.

“Worse.

She tried to kill him.”

“Oh. No.”

Ophele looked at him in horror, her hands lifting to cover her mouth.

“No, no, no, a sixteen year-old girl?”

“She said she was sixteen.

She’d arrived in Rospalme a year before, with people that said they were her parents.

They vanished that same night.

Anyway, by the time I found him, Rem had already killed her.

She kissed him, then tried to stab him.

You might’ve seen the scar on his back.”

Miche slapped at his left shoulder.

“And he hit her.

He was always big for his age, and he was scared.

I don’t think he meant to kill her, but…it was very hard for him, after.”

“That is so awful.

That is so awful,”

she whispered, tears welling and overflowing.

“How could anyone do that, that poor boy! How could anyone—”

Wordlessly, Miche extended a handkerchief as she wept.

It was hard.

He was sorry to tell her how hard the world could be, but Remin would never tell her this story.

After all these years, maybe he didn’t even know how.

Maybe the weight of all those hurts had been so vast, so relentless, he didn’t have the words to speak of them.

But Miche would do it for him.

Miche had never forgotten that fourteen year-old boy, clutching his bleeding shoulder and asking was Merrienne really dead, it had been an accident, there must be some mistake, why had she done that to him?

“I don’t believe you’d do that,”

Miche said, squeezing Ophele’s shoulder.

“Down to my bones, my lady, I know you never would.

And Rem thinks so too, that’s why he’s been letting you close.

But there’s part of him that just can’t ever know.

You see why?”

She nodded, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve.

“I know.

I know.

I hate him.

The Emperor,”

she said thickly.

“I know I shouldn’t say it, he’s the Beloved of Stars, but I hate him, I don’t believe he can be the Divinity when he does something so awful.

Remin never did anything, and neither did his parents, it’s all a li—”

“We don’t say that even here.”

Miche looked at her sharply.

He would have thought she was too young when her mother died to know such dangerous things.

What was common knowledge among Remin’s knights was treason everywhere else in the Empire.

“You should talk to Juste, if you have questions.

What he says goes over my head, but you’re bright enough to keep up.

No, keep it,”

he added, waving a hand as she offered his handkerchief.

“I miss talking to Sir Justenin,”

she said, dabbing her cheeks with it.

“I liked talking to him on the way here, he always made me think.”

“There will likely be more leisure, in a little while.”

Miche had his own ideas about why the quiet, gentle Juste might have been keeping his distance.

“And you probably know better than to ask Rem about any of it, but he won’t appreciate it if you bring it up.”

She nodded, red-eyed.

“Why did you tell me?”

“Because you need to know.

Especially if you’ve guessed enough to go poking yourself,”

he added approvingly.

“It’s not your fault, but it will be hard for you.

Hard for him.

You see why?”

“I do.”

“And now that you know, you can help him,”

Miche said, encouraging.

“You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he takes a sight of looking after.”

“That’s what Sir Huber said.”

She gave a wobbly smile.

“Before he left.”

“Huber was always sensible.

Don’t look so serious,”

he added lightly, and she was quick-witted enough to understand the warning.

“Tell me more about these Daitian hats.”

“Daitian hats?”

Rem asked, appearing at the end of the stable, and Miche was happy to explain the fundamentals while Ophele curried the donkey within an inch of his life.

* * *

Remin had a few memories of what life had been like, before.

The memory of Tressin was as vague and lovely as a dream.

It was an old land, a beautiful land, peaceful and sedate.

His father had been very proud of their well-ordered duchy, and from the windows of his nursery, Remin could see the forest to the east and the acres and acres of wheat fields to the west.

That was his best memory of the land: the golden wheat waving under the summer sun, and a deep blue sky.

The sheaf and the sword were the sigil of his House.

Remin’s father always said that one could not exist without the other.

His father was Duke Benetot, lord of a House whose name it was treason to speak.

He married Sidonie of House Roye when she was eighteen and he was twenty-one.

It was probably a political marriage, but Remin remembered them being happy.

In the evenings they always went for a walk in the garden after supper, and his parents spoke easily together, and laughed often.

His father was a very important man.

Everyone bowed when he passed and said Your Grace, and though he looked like a stern and terrifying giant, he made a happy fool of himself playing with his son, chasing him up and down the stairs, flipping him upside down, throwing him up in the air and onto various soft objects.

“Benetot,”

Remin’s mother admonished, covering her eyes with her hands as if nothing bad could happen so long as she didn’t look.

“Be careful, what if he falls?”

“He’ll get up again,”

his father had replied.

Benetot was convinced that rough play made strong boys, and Remin was going to be a knight, just like his father.

His mother was always worried because Remin didn’t have any brothers and sisters.

Over and over she said she was going to have a baby, but then she would get sick and the baby would go away, and another small stone would be added to the family memorial in the woods.

“I’m here, Mama,”

Remin had tried to reassure her, when she was sad after she had been sick again.

“So you are,”

she had said, pulling him into the bed beside her.

He still remembered how her voice had tickled his ear as she hugged him.

“My heart’s greatest treasure.”

As a daughter of House Roye, his mother knew better than most that treasures could be stolen or lost.

Multiple children were a hedge against cruel chance.

And he remembered the night when Duke Ereguil had come for him, only minutes ahead of the Imperial Guard.

His mother’s parting kiss on his forehead, the feel of her tears on his cheek.

There had been no farewell from his father.

Benetot had gone to Starfall and never came back again.

There had been no final words to remember, no parting benediction.

Only his mother’s choking sob as she whispered, good-bye, my treasure.

“You’re sure about this, Rem?”

In the closet of an office above the storehouse, Edemir eyed him as he set his own seal and signature to several packets of documents, all thick, heavy parchment with Remin’s instructions painstakingly detailed.

These were not mere lists.

These were the formal orders of the Duke of Andelin, written in triplicate, witnessed and signed, with all the formal ribbons, toggles, and wax seals required to prove their authenticity.

“You’ve been nagging me to do it for a year, do you want me to tear it up now?”

Remin asked absently, scrawling his sharp, slashing signature in all the appropriate places.

Edemir was not required to know the contents of these documents.

Indeed, in this case, Remin was requiring him and Tounot to sign without having read a single word, attesting that Remin himself had provided these documents and signed and sealed them in their presence.

Remin was entirely within his rights to do so.

Especially if the documents might concern Edemir and Tounot themselves, which these did.

And given the tide of people surging to the valley, it only made sense that Remin would get his affairs in order.

Soon enough, the first ships would go skating across the Brede, carrying goods and passengers, and Remin was already looking long at the new arrivals, wondering.

He had been careful and lucky for a long time, but if one of the Emperor’s assassins made it through the gauntlet of precautions, it was best to be prepared.

He was not wrong to worry.

It would be many months before he learned that there were now two traitors in Tresingale.

“I never thought I’d see the day when I came to bless the Andelin devils,”

said Tounot, affixing his own seal and signature as second witness.

“It’s a lot easier to watch the riverbank when we only have to do it from inside the walls.

If anyone manages to survive the devils outside, I’m inclined to shake their hands and give them my blessing.”

“You can make that the policy in Tounot Town.”

“Not everything has to be alliterative, Rem.”

“Makes it easier to remember.”

Remin signed the last page and set down his quill, his fingers cramping.

He felt better, having it done.

The sheer complexity of his instructions was a kind of testament to what he had built, and with the east wall finally complete, he could rest knowing that he had done his best to defend his people.

They had been finished only yesterday, with a little ceremony as Master Guisse and Master Misler had laid the final stones at either end of the wall.

Remin had gone so far as to don one of his better jerkins for the event, playing Lord of Tresingale to mark this significant milestone.

“Five miles of wall in six months,”

he had called, when the watchers demanded a speech.

“It would be an achievement to boast anywhere in the world.

You dug to bedrock, cut and shaped the stone, and laid every block with care.

I can only hope that the rest of my city will be built so well.

And when the devils come tonight, the night watch is going to stand on this side of the pit and salute the filthy buggers.”

That brought a burst of cheers, savage and triumphant.

The east gatehouse was yet only a hole in the ground, but so deep and wide that it was nearly as an effective barrier as the wall itself.

And there among all the shouting, laughing men, there was Ophele, a solitary spot of color in her new pink gown.

She had endured as much as any of them to see that this day would come, but there was no sign of hardship in her face.

Her smile was swift and bright as sunrise when he looked at her, as if there had never been a hard word between them at all.

Before, he would have suspected it for a lie.

But now he knew that was just her, so swift to bloom with only a little encouragement.

Ophele did not hold grudges.

That was why he was about to make one last, massive gamble upon her.

Tying off the last of the ribbons, Remin bound up all three copies and locked them away.

One day, he might be able to tear them up and write something better.

But if this was the culmination of his life, he would not be ashamed.

He left Edemir’s office with a lighter step.

Ophele was waiting for him at home, and the prospect of seeing her made his heart beat faster.

She always seemed to have some small gift or surprise for him these days, from a new belt to a sachet for his pillow or even just a pretty stone she had found down by the river.

Sometimes it was food, and if she had scones today, he was going to eat one for real.

“Yes,”

she said when he knocked on the door, careful as always to warn her.

Ophele was already dressed for dinner when he stepped inside, so beautiful even in her simple blue gown that his chest tightened.

She turned to smile at him, and the fronds of her long hair hung around her in damp tendrils, like an enchantress from an old story.

Maybe she was one of those dangerous, beautiful women, luring him so subtly and so sweetly that even Remin Grimjaw couldn’t resist her.

“Here,”

he said, taking a seat by the fire and holding out a hand for her brush.

He was inclined to indulge himself today, and he liked brushing her hair.

He liked the feel of it in his fingers, liked feeling it change into silk as it dried in the heat by the fire.

He liked turning his hands to a gentle task.

“Are you well, wife?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Fine.

You keep asking me that,”

he remarked, drawing the brush through her hair.

“Actually, I was thinking of something my mother told me, when I was a boy.”

“Oh?”

“Have you ever heard of the Diamond Cygnet?”

She shook her head, watching him with large, solemn eyes.

“It’s an heirloom of my mother’s House.

Sidonie Ileane of Roye, that was my mother’s name.

She told me it was a golden egg as big as both her fists, decorated with jewels to show a forest surrounding a lake.

There was a little key that unlocked it on top, and when it opened, there was a swan made of diamonds inside, with a ruby this big for its heart.”

He indicated his own large thumbnail.

“It sounds beautiful.”

“It was a gift from my many-times great-grandfather to his wife, Neda the Swan.

She was a great beauty of the time.

It was a masterpiece, one of the chief treasures of the family.

But House Roye was on the border with Dulcia, before it was absorbed into the Empire, and four hundred years ago the family estate was attacked and looted, and the King of Dulcia took the Cygnet.”

He could remember his mother’s voice as she told him the story, holding his small body in her arms.

Of course, she had used simpler words then; seven year-old Remin was just old enough to understand treasures and war and loss.

“My mother’s family never forgot it.

The story of the swan passed from father to son, mother to daughter, because even if it was in the Dulcian King’s court, it still belonged to House Roye.

And sooner or later, the chance would come to get it back.”

“The Annexation?”

she asked, quick as always to make connections.

“Just so.

Two hundred years ago, Earl Sigedore Aolo of Roye led the Emperor’s forces into the capital of Dulcia.

He fought his way through the Dulcian King’s guard and captured the entire royal household.

And he only asked the Emperor for one thing as a reward.”

“The Cygnet.”

She smiled with appreciation.

“Mmm-hmm.

It wasn’t just a matter of pride,”

he said thoughtfully.

“It wasn’t that the Cygnet belonged to House Roye and they wanted it back.

They remembered, over generations.

They waited.

And when the opportunity came, they took it.

My mother said that was the sort of thing that makes a noble house a great House.”

“I always thought that was just a thing for romances,”

Ophele said thoughtfully.

“Fathers telling their daughters they have to marry so-and-so for the good of their House, when the daughter wants to run off with a stableboy.

But I guess if you want to have a great House, sometimes you can’t run off with the stableboy.”

Conversation with her was confusing because he enjoyed it so much.

There was always more to say, and he could see all those thoughts crowding behind her eyes.

He just didn’t know, he couldn’t know, if anything she said was real.

Quietly, he brushed.

The locks of her hair dried, gleaming in his hands, maple twined with umber, so beautiful against her skin.

Before he realized what he was doing, he had touched her, his fingers gently tracing the smooth skin of her forearm, bared by the shorter sleeves of her soft blue gown.

All this time he had been careful never to touch her more than necessary, denying his desire for her.

“Your Grace?”

she asked softly, and he withdrew.

“Fine,”

he said, setting the brush down on the table.

“Come, we’ll be late for supper.”

Supper was a raucous affair these days, and with so many new people coming into the valley, the high table was a necessity.

Remin sat surrounded by his knights, eating only from the dishes Wen personally provided, and even then, only after Tounot and Miche had tasted them.

“Thank you,”

Ophele said as he cut her meat for her, a courtly grace.

Soon there would be silver, it was already on its way, but he liked watching her eat, her slim fingers picking at the morsels, her tidy manners.

Her hands were so pretty.

“Sousten says you’ll be needed at the house tomorrow, Rem,”

said Juste from a few spaces down the table.

Juste had taken charge of the day-to-day building of the manor house.

If something happened to Remin, then the house would belong to him.

“When?”

“Midmorning.

They’re framing the first floor and need some muscle.”

Remin nodded.

It was a pleasant thought that one day his son and Juste’s boy might play together in halls very like those at Tressin.

But the vision in his mind had altered somewhat, and now the son he imagined had Ophele’s golden eyes, watchful and intelligent.

Daughters that were their mother in miniature.

He had planned a dozen children as a hedge against fate; he understood his mother’s fear all too well.

But now he looked at Ophele and he could imagine his life with her so clearly, it was as if Sousten Didion had painted it for him.

The vast concept of a future, and everything he had endured to ensure that there was one, had narrowed to a singular vision consisting of her.

He could see nothing else.

Walking home in the gentle light of dusk, his heart was pounding in his throat.

It wasn’t just the future that lay before him, the home and the children and the garden he wanted to build.

A thousand years of ancestors stood behind him.

He had been born to carry that burden, but sometimes it was so heavy.

He had fought for so long for them, so everything they had struggled and sacrificed to create would not have been in vain.

He lived a lifetime in the short distance from the cookhouse to his cottage.

Every step felt as if it were the culmination of all the steps he had taken in his life.

The long years of painful, arduous training to become a knight.

The determination with every new attempt on his life that he would not die, he wouldn’t give the Emperor the satisfaction.

The endless years of war.

Remin was twenty-four years old and he had spent half his life at war.

All the while he had known that if he failed, if he died, then his blood would be gone from the world forever.

His parents’ blood would be gone, as if they had never been.

All of it depended on him.

And he was about to risk it all.

Yvain and Dol were already waiting, trying not to look curious.

He’d had a word with them that morning, asking them to move back some from the cottage, as he was wanting private conversation with his wife.

They were his men; they would obey.

Even if they heard him murdering her, they wouldn’t approach.

Inside the cottage, there were a few minutes of homely chores, building the fire and lighting the lamps.

Ophele put on the teakettle, setting out the tiny parcel of tea she took from Wen every night, careful to let Remin see that it remained sealed until he himself opened it.

She was so smart.

It was a habit now to have tea while they worked through the endless stack of correspondence together, one that Remin liked very much.

But tonight, he had a different set of papers in mind.

“I want to talk to you, wife,”

he said, steering her to a chair and producing his copy of the document Tounot and Edemir had witnessed, still sealed and wrapped in black and silver ribbons.

The colors of the House of Andelin.

“What is this?”

she asked, sitting obediently.

There wasn’t a flicker of suspicion in her large, tawny eyes.

“My will.

I want to give you something.”

He sat down, taking the knife from his belt and pushing it across the table to her, hilt first. “This.”