The moment Scribe had first lied to me I’d known I was in mortal danger.

That lie, the refusal to share something with me she had grasped, was the crack in the stone. It didn’t necessarily mean that Eudokia was meant to be my enemy or even the instrument of my downfall, but because of that night I had a blind spot and the Intercessor meant to kill me with it. The trouble was, of course, that knowing I was walking into some sort of trap didn’t tell me anything about what that trap was. For all I knew, not walking in was exactly what would get me killed. Guessing games with the Wandering Bard were a good way to lose your fingers, if not outright your life, so instead of sitting in a dark tent to brood and try to make out what her plan was I’d gone on the offensive.

Even when you couldn’t find the snake in the grass, you could still set the grass aflame.

So I’d thrown my torch. I got things moving in Ater by ordering Abreha Mirembe and Dakarai Sahel to betray me then throw their support behind Akua. It was a risk, of course. I did not believe that the same woman who had once been the Doom of Liesse would now claim the Tower, but I couldn’t sure. Not when the Intercessor was out there and circumstances in the capital changed by the hour. But it was the lesser risk, so it was the one I took. Then, ‘lo and behold, after the grass took fire the snakes came slithering out. There was some sort of botched coup attempt against Malicia – by High Lady Takisha, apparently – that resulted in the Tower’s weather artefacts going wild and covering the capital in vicious storms.

On the surface that was just highborn doing as highborn did, but there’d been one telling detail: the Bard had not intervened to prevent this. Which meant she wanted the storms to delay the resolution of everything in Ater, since little would get moving before my army breached the walls and I wouldn’t attack while the capital was a deathtrap. From that I learned that the Bard’s game was about the Tower and that she wanted to delay until certain conditions were met. The next step was, naturally to try and figure out what those conditions were. I had almost two weeks to see to that while hailstorms and other unnatural weather ravaged the capital, but immediately I began to feel like I was making a mistake.

It wasn’t that we didn’t find anything. Between Scribe’s contacts and the Jacks I found out quite a bit, including what was to my eye a pretty clear campaign to make sure the High Seats were on the verge of open civil war. Over those two weeks pretty much every High Lord and Lady in Praes was given a visceral, personal motive to despise the others. No way that was a coincidence, and again it pointed at the Towe – and whoever climbed it – being the lynchpin of the Bard’s game. Only that wasn’t going to work, and I grew increasingly sure none of that was actually the Intercessor’s doing at all. This was someone else. Malicia, probably, though I wasn’t sure what she intended to get out it.

It wasn’t like the High Seats hating each other would make them like her more.

So the conclusion was that I was being had, and all these games surrounding the Tower were the red herring the Intercessor had laid out for me to pursue. I’d just arrived to that conclusion and was wrestling with the need to second-guess it when I received a gift: my camp was approached by a dozen people from the Green Stretch who claimed to be envoys. Envoys from what, was the natural question, and the answer turned out to be that many of the freeholders – swelled in numbers and skills by deserters from the Legions – had gotten tired of the Tower’s shit and they wanted to secede. I was the natural interlocutor for that, it was hard to deny it.

I was still Queen of Callow, the kingdom the Green Stretches was only parted from by a river, and my army was besieging Ater. If I didn’t back their play for independence, all they had to look forward to were a few early successes while whoever held Ater was busy settling the empire and then a brutal crackdown when the Dread Empire decided to put its breadbasket back in its place. On every level it made sense that they would come to me, but the timing was what drew my attention. I’d already been approached over the state of goblinkind, and now another chunk of Praes was looking for me to decide its fate? I smelled a rat. Someone had a hand in this.

So I heard out the envoys and then put them off, which they didn’t like but couldn’t really do anything about. Who else were they going to go to? They needed me to settle it for them, I told Vivienne when we discussed it, else nothing would change. And that was the moment it struck me. I looked for the stars again and found them faded. Grown even more distant. So that was the trick. The Role I had worn into the fabric of Creation, year after year, was that of a wrangler for Evil. I was the commander of Below’s Named, a leader of the nations that kept no faith with angels. And looking back now, when was it exactly that the Intercessor had first seriously tried to kill me?

The Arsenal, once the Truce and Terms had been in place long enough they began to have the taste of law. The Intercessor did not care in the slightest if I was influential with nations. I could be Queen of Callow or First Under the Night and she’d shrug. Kingdoms weren’t the weave for her loom. But when I’d become the representative for Evil, when Hanno had become one for Good, we’d changed things. It used to be that there were only Gods and Named, with the Intercessor in between, but that was no longer true. Now Named looked to either the White Knight or the Black Queen when they had grievances: there was another intermediary.

And how could such a thing ever be acceptable to an entity that the Original Abomination himself had called the Intercessor?

We were infringing on her power. Reducing it in a real, practical way. Just spreading about the knowledge of her existence had been enough to hamper her severely, hadn’t it? There could be no more sneaking her way into a Band of five to tug at the strings up close and personal, not when her Name was known to everyone in our charge. Only it was even worse, because now I was directly claiming power that’d once been hers alone. More than once I’d called her the goddess of stories, but my Name was already beginning to steal fire from her hearth. I could already feel Named and I’d not even come into my mantle properly. How much more would I to do when I did?

So I must die, that much was a given. But that wasn’t enough. I had to be killed in a way that undid the groove I’d worn into Creation, otherwise she was just kicking the trouble down a few years. If someone else took up my Role it’d be just as unacceptable, so more than just slitting my throat she had to undo the very Role I’d cobbled together. Which was why suddenly everyone was knocking at my door, bringing their troubles with them and asking me to fix it all. The Intercessor’s power was not in destruction, it was in the nudge – so she was trying to nudge my Role. I was on the cusp of my Name coming together and if I settled the goblins, settled the Green Stretch, then I was forging my Name into a tool to move those forces.

About the disputes of borders and kings, the lands that had forged me into the ruler I was today. I would not be the Black Queen, that Name had been destroyed too thoroughly at the Folly, but it would not be so far. I would be a ruler over Evil. But not over Named, save those sworn to me. That was why I’d been able to feel Vivienne even though she was a heroine instead of a villain, I suspected. I would rule over some Names in the same way that a Dread Empress did, based on authority. But the sight of the stars in the dark would fade entirely away, that door closed. So I avoided speaking so much as a word to either goblins or the Green Stretch envoys, knowing it would give the Bard her victory, and looked for the final blow. There would be a third., because there was always a third. And looking back at the storm over Ater, I found my answer: the Bard had not stopped that disaster. She wanted the delay, because her third had not yet arrived.

It’d been two weeks away, the very orcish horde we’d all been following as it marched south on Ater. There was a Name among it, a powerful one, and I had thought it to be Hakram but it shone too brightly for that. Or perhaps, I’d thought, it just shone too brightly to be the Adjutant. Either way, there was only one thing to do. Against Juniper and Vivienne’s protests, I refused to send envoys to the horde as it approached and forbade the Army of Callow from approaching the Clans. If it truly was Hakram leading the orc clans, then I could not risk conversation with him. I knew myself well enough to be aware that I’d be sucked in the moment we sat at the same table and that might very well be a disaster.

To beat the Bard, I had fight the same instincts that’d kept me alive all those years and take a step back. Do nothing. How restless and unhappy that made me ended up making me more certain than ever I’d finally caught my enemy’s tail. And though there was a price to my abstention, there was also a prize. I had abandoned a path for my Name to take and embraced another, how could that be without consequence? After the Battle of Kala I’d come to see some Named as stars shining in the black, but my own Name was precipitating. Strengthening. It was more than just the stars, now, I could see trajectories. Objects in motion. And those paths were the paths their stories would take if they were not meddled with.

I’d seen only villains this way and earned splitting headaches trying to go further, but it’d opened doors for me.

When the storm ended, when the orcs approached and the confluence at the Tower neared its resolution, I acted. Regardless of the Bard trying to break my Role, she’d be using a knife to slit my throat so I set about removing them from the field. I sent the Ranger’s three pupils out in the city to face her, knowing one way or another that confrontation would remove her from play – either she’d lose and be defeated or she’d defeat them and lose interest. I sent out the Squire to collect the Black Knight’s head, but she slipped my noose after my own father let loose thousands of giant spiders into districts still full of civilians. The chaos that act of lunacy unleashed on Ater flipped the orderly board I’d been setting up.

Fine, so that round was a wash. I bailed out Archer and her companions when Ranger looked close to a win, knowing my side would benefit from there being a rematch – she struck me as unlikely to learn a lesson or come to an understanding that’d sharpen her Name, while I’d made a career out of betting on angry young women bringing it home. It wasn’t a total wash, even though the Clans stumbled into the mess and the Army of Callow had to pull back all the way to the eastern walls. I finally knew where my father was and I got an idea of what he was after through Arthur’s report, which had me adjusting my plans. I still had to avoid the Clans, and avoiding thinking about why lest I falter, but I knew where the fulcrum was now.

It wouldn’t be the battle for Ater but the Tower itself, all signs pointed to it. So far I’d avoided the Intercessor’s knives, so all I needed to do was ride this out to the end and I would get what I wanted. Which was more than just getting the East in order. Oh no, after all this I wouldn’t be settling for so small a prize. Masego and I had already faced the Bard once, in the Arsenal, and this time she would not be getting away so lightly. And what we’d get out of her might well win us this war. She had set a trap for me, but I would turn it into a trap for her.

If the Tower was to be the battlefield, then I ought to take care of loose ends. Following Malicia’s trajectory in the dark told me she was about to kill herself. Not with her own hands, but by following through a plan that’d kill her because of a fundamental mistake. I couldn’t what mistake exactly, just that the groove would be ‘villain fails to understand the other and gets her comeuppance’. Had to be either Akua or my father, I figured, but hard to tell. More importantly, it was a stable trajectory – and that meant the odds were good the Intercessor would be using it for something. I didn’t need to know for what to know it was better to disrupt it.

She was best removed from the board before the resolution came, so I sent in Assassin and then threw in Squire as well when I saw that the Black Knight had hit the resolution of staying true to her ideals. That likely meant protecting Malicia, so I could call in Arthur’s last part of the pattern of three to allow Assassin its clear shot at the Dread Empress. With Vivienne riding herd on the situation, the matter should be handled. I couldn’t step in myself, much as I wanted to. If my boots were on the ground, the chances were too high that the Intercessor would be able to entangle me. I had to keep away until the end, act through intermediaries.

The irony of needing to fight exactly like the Intercessor to beat her did not escape me.

I misliked the idea of being blind in the Tower when it was where it would all come to a head, so I sent Archer and the other two after Ime. They were escorting Scribe, who I meant to take over the Eyes after their current mistress was eliminated – once she had, I’d get the stream of information I needed. Even better, I’d know more than the Intercessor in some ways. We could both follow Named, but I’d be the one with actual spies. It was the edge I needed, and it couldn’t hurt to blind Malicia anyway. Masego I kept on task, I couldn’t spare him for anything else, and Ishaq I had another use for. Apprentice I sent out to have a look at something else, an errand to keep her busy and away from what I didn’t want the Bard to see.

With all that loosed, I found a rooftop to stand on the edge of. Waited for moving parts to come together. And my Name sang in joy, coiling around me. Began to bloom inside me. I already had an aspect almost fully formed, I found. Something I’d done again and again, something that aligned with what I saw as my Role in the great machine that was Creation. It felt deep and quiet, like the bottom of a well. But it wasn’t even that revelation that had me smiling. I could see, now. Just small things, but it was a start. I caught pieces of Malicia watching the city from above, of Archer leading her companions through the tunnels beneath Ater.

And when the conflict came, I saw that too. The trajectory of my defeat: Ranger stepping in before Ime could be taken, freeing her to arrive just in time to derail Malicia’s assassination. But I scored a victory as well, when the Lady of the Lake’s three pupils left her bleeding on the ground. She’d survive, but she was done for the night. And Archer had created an opportunity for me without knowing it, one I took even knowing it might cost me my throat. I dipped out to see to it, returning just in time to see the last pieces coming together. The Tower was burning, my father was triumphant and the last test had come upon us all. Everyone was there, nobles and orcs and goblins and even the Black Knight. I came out of the Ways in a whisper of darkness, catching a glimpse of the Bard on a darkened rooftop and offering her a wink.

I had brought three knives here tonight – one up my sleeve, one waiting and one veiled. Time to see which of us had the sharpest blades.

Scribe was waiting for me in the dark of the street, eyes patient. I pulled my cloak tight, watching the nobles huddled at the bottom of the stairs that I could see from the side.

“Report,” I ordered.

“Malicia abdicated, Akua Sahelian refused the throne and struck the match that set the Tower aflame,” Eudokia said.

I kept the triumphant smile that itched to break out away from my face. So close to the end, gloating would be dangerous. Even if I’d been right, even though I’d seen the truth of her. It had not been a mask. It had been her, and now we would begin the last part of our journey together.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Malicia’s in the crowd,” Scribe said. “We lost track of the other one. She left the Tower, though, that much I’m certain of.”

“She won’t die like that,” I quietly said. “She’ll be here. She wouldn’t-”

Movement caught my attention. She was stunning, I thought, it pale and gold. Like some ancient goddess of dusk come to witness the death of empire, a wisp of impossible beauty unmarred by the grime of Creation. And Akua, eyes hooded, gracefully folded her legs and sat at the bottom of the stairs. Lower than my father, but still higher than anyone else. And with that, the end had begun.

“Is this all your doing then, Carrion Lord?” High Lady Takisha called out. “You burned and bled us so that we would kneel to Dread Emperor Black?”

“Did you not hear?” my father smiled. “The Dread Empire is dead.”

I glanced at Scribe. I’d had my doubts his plan would work, but just in case I’d set Apprentice to look for one of the indicators that’d follow if he had succeeded.

“What did Apprentice report?” I whispered.

“Last word is that the Tower in Arcadia is aflame too,” she murmured.

I grimaced. Amadeus was calling it too early, then. Until the monstrous mirror of the real thing was broken in Arcadia as well, I wouldn’t bet on his work destroying Praes lasting too long. If he wanted to stick the landing, he still had to sell his story. To these people and to Below.

“No one here will kneel to you,” High Lord Jaheem scorned. “This is nothing more than the tantrum of a man knowing he could never claim the Tower himself.”

“What Tower is there left to claim, Jaheem Niri?” the Carrion Lord gently asked.

The sky was burning green behind him and they shivered.

“The Dread Empire failed,” he said. “And so it died. It will not return.”

“And what would you have instead?” High Lady Takisha challenged. “King Amadeus is no better than Dread Emperor Black. I’ll not have it.”

Murmurs of appreciation.

“There is a precedent,” my father said, sounding faintly amused. “This land has been ruled without a tyrant before.”

Sure, before Maleficent the First and the Miezans. It’d been a pack of squabbling petty kingdoms, much like Callow. Only somehow I doubted that was his plan, given that I’d inherited my tendency for centralizing authority from the man. Similar skepticism came from the crowd. A few scorned him out loud for wanting to split up Praes into lesser kingdoms.

“Are you so unfamiliar with our own history?” Akua laughed. “He does not speak of the Many Kingdoms. Or has Haider’s Reign already faded from all your memories?”

That was vaguely familiar, but not. I glanced at Scribe.

“The Throneless Years,” she murmured, looking spellbound as she watched the discussion. “It’s what highborn call it.”

Ah, I thought. That was why the name was familiar. Haider had been the Chancellor’s name. It was old history from the Sixty Years War, which Dread Empress Regalia II had begun by invading Callow while it was still occupied by Procer. She’d died long before its end, even as the Fairfaxes reclaimed parts of the kingdom and it became a three-way brawl, and her successor Maledicta II’s early victories ended in defeat and then assassination after repeat purges of the imperial court. Maledicta had killed most of the leading nobles that could easily take the throne, though, so it turned into a messy civil war around Ater as Callow took the time to force the last Procerans out. With no clear winner in the civil war, the Chancellor – Haider – proposed a compromise.

The lords and ladies of Praes would instead march west against Callow, and whoever distinguished themselves the most in the conquest of the kingdom would climb the Tower when the war was at an end. Haider would, meanwhile, rule as Chancellor much as he would have had Dread Emperor gone to war westward and left him in charge. The High Seats had accepted the compromise and the ‘Throneless Years’ lasted for two decades while the Praesi fought my countrymen as well as each other. As a military strategy it was a failure, since the Praesi made alliances with Callow against their rivals, but it did keep the civil war out of the Wasteland until the lord that would become Dread Emperor Vindictive I seized the Blessed Isle.

He cut off the supplies for the armies still west and closed the gates. Once his last rivals were dead beneath his walls, he marched on Ater and took it by force before crucifying the Chancellor. A charmer, that one.

And though it was thin grounds, I thought, my father was not wrong to bring it up. It was a precedent for rule by someone else than a Dread Emperor with no higher authority above them. Only what was the point of all this, if he was just going to torch the Tower and then replace one title by an another? So long as the Role beneath did not change, nothing would. And the Tower in Arcadia would keep burning, but in time the flames would fade and the old abomination would rise anew.

“There have been Chancellors before that were Duni,” Sargon Sahelian mildly said.

A wave of surprise. It was not endorsement, but it was not dismissal either. I frowned. Why? When I’d spoken with him in Wolof, he’d made it clear that he wanted my father nowhere near any sort of throne. What had changed? My answer came in the form of a shadow standing behind the green-eyed man, an aged woman finally arrived. Ime, still mistress of the Eyes of the Empire. Who was, by the gesture, declaring the Eyes supported him. My fingers clenched. Ah, so that was why. Ime had taken out Sargon’s soulbox when the Tower burned out. It was now my father who held his leash.

“Are we going to entertain this masquerade?” High Lord Dakarai scorned. “It is becoming Dread Emperor in all but name. Just a fig leaf-”

“The days of tyrants who ruled until death are behind us. The Chancellor will rule for seven years and one,” the Carrion Lord replied. “Not dawn longer.”

My eyes narrowed. There were flaws with that, obvious one. How would the Chancellor be chosen, what would keep High Seats from starting civil wars to depose them? My concerns were shared by some. High Lady Takisha let out a mocking laugh.

“And why should any of us obey such person?” she asked. “We would be the greater in every way.”

“Because on this very night,” the Carrion Lord said, “every army in Praes save the Legions of Terror will be disbanded.”

Pandemonium. Half the nobles were screeching in anger, the rest jeering.

“A jest in poor taste,” High Lord Jaheem said. “You have gone mad in your old age, Carrion Lord, to think we would meekly bend the knee to this. Why should we?”

The green-eyed man grinned.

“One vote,” he told them.

Oh, I thought, you wily fucker. And he’d got their attention.

“Every High Seat will get to either name a candidate for Chancellor or cast a vote in the election,” the green-eyed man said. “So will Ater, the Clans and the Confederation of the Grey Eyries returned to the fold.”

And I saw it in the crowd, the hunger. Taking the Tower by force, it was tricky business even if it went perfectly. Tricky and costly. But here he was, offering them an easier way. The High Seats would have the majority of the votes – Wolof, Okoro, Nok, Aksum and Kahtan. Assuming Foramen kept its vote, there would be two goblin votes and one for the orcs. Ater would be loose vote, a ninth one to ensure there could be no ties. They had a clear majority, but that was where he’d been tricky: you could either nominate or vote, but not both. Alliances. He was forcing whoever wanted to be the Chancellor, the power in Ater, to earn the support of a majority of Praes.

And if anyone tried to go against the result, the sole army in Praes – the Legions of Terror – would grind them into fucking dust. They didn’t get a vote, and I’d bet rubies to piglets that being part of the Legions would disqualify you from being nominated. My father was leaving enormous power in the hands of the High Seats, which had to gall him, but realistically speaking he couldn’t break their influence without twenty years of brutal civil war. Instead he was consigning their influence to the political, which there was no taking away from them without extermination anyway, and making sure they had no military power. It was the kind of compromise I’d honestly not expected him to be able to make.

“And you support this, Lady Akua?” High Lord Dakarai asked.

Vivienne believed he’d genuinely flipped to become a supporter of Akua, this one, and I was beginning to be convinced as well.

“The Age of Wonders is dead,” Akua Sahelian quietly said. “Are we to follow it into the grave? Scorn him if you wish, but I hear none offering a brighter tomorrow.”

And that was another hit. It shook them, enough that the crowd began to hesitate. They didn’t like him, didn’t like this, but what else was on the table? And they had to know that if they didn’t come to an accord, if they all fled back to their cities, Praes would collapse. Without something to bind it together, a new heart, the High Seats would turn into kingdoms and make war on each other once more. And after years of civil war, no one hear was hungry for more slaughter. Many began to discuss it, but it was High Lord Sargon who broke the stalemate.

“Wolof nominates Amadeus of the Green Stretch for Chancellor,” Sargon crookedly smiled.

It was a challenge as well as a statement. Speak or walk away.

“I nominate myself for Chancellor,” High Lady Takisha replied through gritted teeth.

Ah, and there went the southern half of Praes.

“The Clans vote for Amadeus of the Green Stretch,” Hakram calmly said.

My fingers twitched at the sight of him. There was no denying it now, was there? He was the Warlord. He was lost to me. I forced it down. I could not afford distractions right now.

“Foramen votes for Amadeus of the Green Stretch,” High Lady Wither said, then cackled. “So does the Confederation of the Grey Eyries.”

Surprise and fear. Ater could have no vote, not in this election, and so four of the eight who’d speak already had. One more and my father would be the Chancellor of Praes.

“Your opinion on the right to rule of the undead, lord?” Abreha Mirembe called out.

He grinned, all teeth and malice.

“Acceptable,” he replied.

The old corpse grinned back. I could have stopped her from speaking, I knew. Pull at the strings. But not now, not when I was so close to getting the outcome I wanted – my father on something like a throne, Praes in hands I could trust.

“Aksum votes for the Carrion Lord,” High Lady Abreha called out.

And just like that it was over. Dakarai Sahel voted for him as well and Jaheem Niri nominated himself, but it was already settled. Rising to his feet, the bandages on his side flecked with red, my father smile.

“Then for my first decree I dissolve every private army in Praes,” Amadeus of the Green Stretch said. “And charge the Legions of Terror to enforce the result of any and all elections.”

Nim stood high above the crowd, and through her helm I thought I glimpsed eyes gone watery. She was moved.

“We will take up the duty with pride,” the Black Knight replied.

He offered her a fond smile.

“As for my second decree,” the Chancellor, “we will begin negotiations to sign onto the Liesse Accords. We will bargain with the Grand Alliance.”

I swallowed a grin. I was still furious at him, deep down. What he’d unleashed on the city… But he’d always been a monster. I’d known that from the start. The reason I’d come to love him anyway was just before my eyes. He was going to do it. He was going to get Praes in line and join the war.

“Are we to bleed for Procer, then?” High Lord Jaheem coldly asked.

“We earn our place at the table, so that we might bend the terms,” he easily replied. “And if you worry of the costs, perhaps you should remember the last Throneless Years.”

Puzzlement.

“Callow was meant to be the proving grounds deciding who would claim the Tower,” he reminded them. “Let Keter serve the same purpose. When my eight years come at an end, who better than the victors of the war against the Original Abomination himself?”

Ah, the appeal to pride. No lack of that here to use. There was some back and forth, questions and answers, but my attention was elsewhere.

“So?” I asked.

“We’ll know soon,” Scribe replied.

The runner came back with word from Sapan quick enough. Scribe grimaced.

“The Tower is broken,” she said. “But it still stands.”

Fuck, I thought. It wasn’t over yet. It was exactly what I’d been afraid of: I was going to have to bless this. Like a queen kissing a baby, I’d have to signify my approval before it came to an end. And that meant stepping into it. I breathed out. Not too far from here I could feel the Night I had invested, the knot of smooth power. I’d taken the precautions I could, I reminded myself. Now I just needed to wade in and see if I’d beaten the Bard or if this was all going to turn to ash. I steadied myself, patted Eudokia’s shoulder and strolled out around the corner.

It took a moment for people to notice me. It was dark out and they were talking and there were many of them. But in time they did, and the sound of chatter died. Soon not one of them dared even to breath too loud, leaving only the sound of my deadwood staff clacking against the stone as I limped forward. Some part of me gloried in it. In the terrifying figures of my youth now going still at the sight of me. At the fear in their eyes. Once, as a young girl, I had seen my father silence an entire banquet hall simply by entering it. I’d sworn, that night, that one day I would have that power to.

I’d kept my oath.

“Black Queen,” my father greeted me.

“Carrion Lord,” I replied. “Or should it be Chancellor now?”

“Either will suffice,” he said.

“Chancellor, then,” I mused.

I swept the assembled nobles with my gaze. Only one met it: Akua’s golden eyes met mine. She was on her feet now, but her face distant. As if unconcerned with all this. Waiting for it to end.

“You speak for Praes now,” I said.

“I do,” he replied.

“Then you answer for Praes as well,” I mildly said.

He conceded the point with a half-nod.

“I am not unaware that we have earned enmity,” my father replied. “Reparations will be offered.”

“It will take more than gold to even those scales,” I coldly said.

“And I offer more than that,” he easily replied. “Our signature on the Liesse Accords, yes, but a more immediate boon as well.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“I’m listening.”

“I have a way to even the odds against the armies of Keter,” he told me.

I stilled. Well now, there was a princely offer. Below us both, some of the nobles smiled. For people who largely despised him, they were warming up to the regime rather quickly.

“A worthy price,” I said.

He cocked an eyebrow.

“But?”

“There is one thing more,” I said. “One among you allied with the Dead King even as he sought to destroy all of Calernia. One of you sabotaged and attacked the Grand Alliance at every occasion. That offence needs answering.”

“Careful now,” the Carrion Lord softly warned.

I met his eyes with my sole one, undaunted.

“Give me Alaya of Satus,” I evenly said. “Who was once empress. Give me the hand behind the Night of Knives and a hundred enmities since.”

Give me Ratface’s killer, I thought. Give me the reason I had to come to the Wasteland when the world is dying.

“The Grand Alliance,” he said, “does not get to make such demands.”

My fingers tightened.

“Careful now,” I echoed. “Do you think that, after these last few years, Praes can make any demand at all?”

“It does not have to be this way,” he quietly said.

“It does,” I coldly replied.

Because Praes had gotten away with this for too long. And I loved him like a father, even after this latest monstrosity, but that did not mean he got a pass. That burning the Tower would end it all. Praes would pay one last price in blood for the horrors it had unleashed on us all. Let the slate be called clean after that, but not before. I glanced down into the crowd and found the woman who had been the Dread Empress of Praes this morning. Alaya of Satus looked… tired. Her beauty had not waned, but the elaborate green dress hung loosely on her. She looked tired and afraid, I thought. She met my eyes with resignation. She saw her death in me.

I had thought I would take pleasure in this. Now I felt almost ashamed. It still needed to be done.

“Then I’m sorry,” my father told me.

He descended a few steps and my eye followed him down. Hakram had risen up a few steps until they stood side by side. Their heights made it look almost comical, but there was no humour to be found now. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, like I’d just made a mistake.

“No,” the Warlord said.

My face turned into a blank mask. I set aside the feeling of betrayal, raw and bloody as it was.

“Warlord?” I flatly asked.

Hakram’s face was as carved out of stone.

“I have sworn an oath that the Clans will not march against Keter if Alaya of Satus is taken,” the Warlord said. “I will stand by it.”

My father’s face was not apologetic, but there was not a speck of joy to be found in it. Behind them, I found the mood was matching. Some of the nobles were smiling, once more, and when I looked at the others – well, the orcs were a given but I found no purchase with Wither either. I had not struck a bargain with either her or the Grey Eyries, and now that decision was coming back to haunt me.

“The way to even the odds against Keter for her life,” Amadeus calmly said. “That is the bargain.”

And I considered it, for a moment. Maybe if I made a compromise, then – and immediately I let out a soft gasp. The stars were dying. The black was fading. The Name itself, after all this time, was waning. And in that moment, I finally understood the trap that the Intercessor had laid out for me. I’d told dozens of people I had come here to kill Malicia. High nobles and Named, rulers and simple soldiers. It was one the thing about this campaign I’d never wavered about or hidden. I had staked my reputation on it. And now, on this final night where my Name was to form, I was being forced to walk back those words. I had come here to assert power over the East, and now the East was throwing that claim back in my face rejecting it.

It was never only Named or nation, I realized with dim horror. I’d always needed to have both. I’d just been tricked into thinking it was a choice. And so now that I was on the verge of losing one entirely, I was on the verge of destroying my own Name before it could form. I’d understood what the Intercessor was after all this time, but I had been entirely, terribly wrong about how she was going to do it. It’d been about this the whole time. She had made sure that my father would win and Malicia would survive just to ensure that this very moment would come about. And now I had the choice to either throw away a Name that might win us the war tonight – Gods, what Masego and I had planned! – or… I clenched my fingers and unclenched them. Or assert my authority over them the hard way.

Kill them.

I had been a hard girl and I’d become a harder woman, but I still flinched at the thought of that.

“If she dies,” I quietly told them, “the war could be won tonight.”

I saw that sink in, and even as in their eyes the realization of a mistake bloomed I felt my stomach clench. How very deeply I had been manipulated. I’d kept my distance from all of them for fear of them being used as a knife against me, but that’d been nothing more than a shadow on the wall. Now the knife was being pointed at my throat precisely because I’d not spoken with either of them. I the distance I heard notes of a hauntingly familiar tune, sung by a heartbreakingly beautiful voice. The only person who’d had all the information was up there on that roof, smiling as we all stumbled in the dark. I closed my eye, then opened it. Breathed out. Found the frozen calm at the heart of me, the ice.

“Step aside,” I said, and it was nothing less than an order.

“And who are you to demand that?” Amadeus asked. “It is a conqueror’s demand, and you have not conquered here.”

The wants of the woman, I thought, and the needs of the queen. Hakram saw it in me first, took half a step back. I loved them both. Hakram more than my father, perhaps, but both deeply. But that was just me. I could make another Warlord. I could force another Chancellor to kneel. But to gain my victory over the Bard, there was only tonight. And that victory, I thought as I felt like weeping, might save millions. What we’d planned, Masego and I… What did two lives matter in the face of that? I could love them all I wanted, but I had buried people I loved before. Two lives against millions.

Gods damn us all.

“I am,” I replied, “your keeper.”

It rang out, loud and clear, without my ever having raised my voice.

“There might come a time where you earn a kind hand, a protector, but not tonight,” I coldly said. “Instead you earned me. You dealt out evil and it has been returned to your gate, but you think that at this hour of reckoning you can flee from your dues?”

I struck my staff against the steps and the stone cracked, split as if the very earth knew my anger. They backed away, both

“Who am I?” I hissed. “I am Below’s watchman, the enforcer of the black laws, and I tell you now that if you do not settle your debt in full then I will cast your shivering souls out into the darkness from where is no return.”

Power coursed through my veins, the open maw of a great beast just my ear. If could feel its warm breath, the eagerness in the fang. It wanted blood. An old friend returned at my side.

“I am the Warden of the East,” I told them, and it became true. “Step aside.”

My words rang with power and Hakram had to fight it, but my father only froze half a beat. I met his eyes then. That eerie pale green, and behind them I saw fearsome thing I always had. Cold gears of steel, turning. Grinding. And the mind behind it, as he had once told me, worked only one way. In the face of conflict, he’d confessed that night, I will reduce all individuals involved to instruments, and seek what I consider the best outcome. I’d never seen it happen before, him finding its path and committing to it. Power pulsed heavy in the air. Something old and deep, something beyond even the Sisters. He was calling in his dues to Below, as Hune once had.

A heartbeat later he had a knife in hand and I flicked my wrist, the leather contraption Pickler had made me bringing his first gift to my palm.

He took half a step up, and flush as I was with the power of my Name I saw him move. My neck, the blade would bite into my neck. I took half a step down, already seeing it happen in my mind’s eye. The blow would draw blood, but not deep enough. Mine would not miss. I let out a ragged breath, half a scream, and as we embraced steel found flesh. My knife, my gift, bit deep found the heart. And I felt a cold edge against the side of my neck. No, I realized dimly. Not the edge. The side. He’d not so much as pricked my skin. I broke away, but could not part too far. He was slumping already, but on his place face I found a twitching smile.

In the distance, a lute made a false note.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no – Father why did you do that.”

“Forced your hand,” he murmured. “You have to spare her now. There’s no one else who can replace me.”

And he was right. The High Seats all hated each other now, there was no one else left who could possibly rule except Akua. And she would refuse it. We slumped to the ground together, my leg throbbing with pain, and I reached for Night. Tried to stop the damage. It did nothing, as if some force was devouring the power. He had, I remembered with horror, called in his dues to Below.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” I croaked.

“It’ll take blood to finish it,” he rasped. “It always does.”

“You hate martyrs,” I cursed him.

“This is Praes,” he smiled. “What is one more sacrifice?”

“You fucking fool,” I wept.

Tears. How long had it been, since I had wept tears? The lute again, in the distance. The melody was smooth.

“Proud of you,” he got out. “So proud. My daughter.”

And what kind of a man would say that to the girl whose knife was still in his heart?

“Monster,” I accused.

The green eyes softened.

“The very worst kind,” he smiled.

He clutched my hand.

“Please,” he asked. “Goodbyes.”

Face grimly set, I rose away. The knife I left in him. It was the only thing keeping him alive. Alaya of Satus came without needing to be called. There were tears, I saw at the corner of her eyes. She knelt by his side, all of us watched by a hundred eyes, and what they whispered at first I did not hear. But the end I did.

“It was both of us,” my father got out. “Both.”

It was getting harder from him to talk.

“It shouldn’t have come to this,” Alaya whispered.

“Do better,” he said. “Do it right, this time. For the both of us. Make it as it should have been.”

“I, I can’t-”

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

Her face, I thought was the picture of anguish.

“Always,” Alaya of Satus hoarsely replied.

“We’ll win,” he promised, threading their fingers. “Be free.”

In the distance, the empire burned green. With a last rasping breath, he laid down on the steps of Tower and died. I’d killed my father for the third time, and this time it was true. And I knew, without asking or knowing how I knew, that when the message from Apprentice came it would tell me the Tower in Arcadia had broken. I breathed out raggedly, and the sound of it covered the footsteps.

The knife sunk through my ribs, but it stopped before it could reach my heart.

Not because Scribe had stopped striking but because she was dead. The sword, shining red and wetly in the light of the half-moon, ripped clear out of her skull. The lasts wisps of the veil faded as the Barrow Sword flicked away the blood from the edge. Eudokia slumped to the ground, eyes lifeless. The moment Scribe had first lied to me I’d known I was in mortal danger. And now I knew what it was that she’d kept from me. That my father would, whatever the cost to him or anyone at all, keep Alaya of Satus alive. I put a hand against my side as I limped away. It came away red. I seized Night, slowed it down, but I could not heal. It would have to suffice.

Of the three knives I had brought, two had found blood. Only one remained.

“He didn’t buy you your life,” I said.

Alaya of Satus, once-empress of Praes, met my eye unflinchingly. Hers were as red as mine, but what did that change? I had loved him, but I was still the Warden of the East. I would still collect the dues.

“I thought as much,” she said. “Seven and one?”

I nodded.

“And when the first dawn of the ninth year comes,” I quietly said, “I will come for you.”

She did not answer for a long moment, looking down at his corpse.

“Eight years will already be too long,” she quietly said.

I stood in silence as I watched the greats of Praes gather again for the election of their Chancellor. The votes, this time were unanimous. It was done. Only one last thing remained. I took back the knife from my father’s corpse.

“Won’t you come out?” I asked. “You failed, Yara. I still live.”

A snort from behind me.

“Well, you’re already well on your way to being dead inside,” the Intercessor said, frowning down at my father’s corpse. “Gods, what an unreliable prick in the end. Didn’t think there was that much of a person left in him.”

“Your mistake,” I said.

“If he’d been Named it would have worked,” she sighed, “but you don’t have that many blind spots left. Balls. Next one will be our last, I think. You can have this one – you’ve got to be getting used to the taste of ashes in your mouth.”

“No,” I quietly replied.

“No?” she repeated, amused. “Then why do you keep swallowing them?”

“There won’t be a next time,” I said. “This ends tonight.”

She rolled her eyes. Then a heartbeat later, she cocked an eyebrow.

“So that’s why you kept Hierophant back,” the Intercessor said, then shrugged. “You’re getting repetitive, Cat. You gonna try your Arsenal play again? You ought to-”

The silver harpoon took her in the side. It didn’t break flesh, but it sunk deep. Eyes shining under the eyecloth, Masego ripped his way out of the Twilight Ways and strode onto Creation as the barrier between realms screamed in pain. The glass eyes lingered on my father’s corpse, then on Scribe’s.

“You-”

His long, clever fingers closed around the harpoon and he tugged. The Bard’s scream interrupted her own words.

“When I am done with you, Intercessor,” the Hierophant said in a calm, even tone, “there is nothing Above of Below that will be able to put you back together.”

I shivered, as much because of the mildness of the delivery as the words.

“You can do nothing,” the Wandering Bard hissed. “You think it’s not been tried before? I can’t die, you fools, and pain just-”

“This isn’t about death,” I said. “It isn’t even about pain. This is about loss.”

I glanced at Masego and he nodded without turning. I put a hand by his own on the silver harpoon’s shaft. The sorcery he held washed through the both of us, thundered through our veins. And I glimpsed it, just for a moment, what she saw. The lay of it. Like a city seen from the sky, a maze of turns and twists only they were all stories. People. All the stories in the world.

“As I thought,” Hierophant said. “It will take two.”

“Better this way,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ll finish it myself.”

He ripped out the harpoon, and even as the Intercessor hoarsely shouted I saw half the world disappear. We’d stolen it, Hierophant and I. Half the stories in the world, we’d stolen them from her. Above’s stories were gone from her sight, from her soul. They’d make a decent enough present for the Warden of the West, but before that it was time to take my half. I took her by the throat and my beast laughed, laughed in a way that sounded like a howl.

“Can you taste them yet, Yara?” I whispered. “The ashes?”

And she opened her mouth to answer, or so I thought, but I saw only red. She’d bitten off her own tongue, I realized. And she was choking herself to death. I tried to save her, keep her alive longer, but the moment the Night touched her she was gone. I could almost feel her, feel her eyes on me. Feel the utter, absolute fury. And when I reached out for my Name, for the stars in the black and the stories they followed, I saw a shiver go through the world. They stopped. All of them, stopped. The Names still existed, but they no longer moved.

“Oh Gods,” I whispered.

We had stolen half the stories in the world from the Intercessor. And now, in her wroth, she had killed the other half. It was gone, like vanished in the air. Below’s Named were no longer bound by stories. And Above’s had been wrested from the Intercessor, but we didn’t know how to use them. I found one star brighter than all the rest, followed, and glimpsed what lay within.

A dead man sat on a throne, still as the corpse he was.

“Interesting,” the Dead King said, and if a skull could smile he would have.

Oh Gods, I thought again. Villains no longer had stories. There was no longer anything holding him back. The sigh faded, leaving me to stand alone as the sky burned green above me.

I had just doomed us all.