Some dark, petty part of me enjoyed that the war had finally reached Salia.

The First Prince had rustled up a proper welcome for us, cheering crowds and soldiers in shining armour, but it was like painting over a cracked wall. The impressive numbers that’d turned up were not enough to hide that the streets beyond them were deserted, that people barred their doors and closed their windows. Fear had finally reached the capital of the mightiest realm on Calernia and it was making its people hunch. Huddle in like a child awaiting a blow. I allowed the vicious little twist of satisfaction to linger a while before chasing it away. I had not forgotten the Tenth Crusade, but these days Procer was probably my closest ally. Creation liked its little ironies.

I smiled and waved as we rode down the broad avenue, a company of knights around us. A fourth banner had been added to the three that were customary – mine, Vivienne’s and the Order of Broken Bells – as my heiress had formally founded her Order of the Stolen Crown and ordered its banner sown. I rather liked the look of the heraldry – a golden crown clasped by a white hand, set on Fairfax blue – as it contrasted nicely to my own silver-on-black as well as the Broken Bells’ bronze-on-black. The Order of the Broken Bells had been my creature, forged out of rebellion and the compromise of traitors, and so it bore my marks. My shadow.

Let the Stolen Crown take after their mistress’ instead, sharing the same gold as her Summer sun resting on the same Fairfax blue. Let them be to her what Brandon Talbot and his unflinching knights had been to me: a sword and a shield, my will made into a thousand thundering hooves.

“Huh,” Vivienne murmured. “Would you look at that? She came out personally.”

I abandoned the almost maudlin thoughts and returned to the here and now, following the Princess’ gaze down the avenue and to a grand plaza. My brow cocked. As Vivienne had said, Cordelia Hasenbach had come to bid me welcome in person. She was astride a horse of her own, one of those great chargers Lycaonese were fond of, and dressed as regally as if she intended to hold court here in the streets. She’d chosen a sweeping gown in dark blue, her riot of golden curls going down her back and held back only by a circlet of white gold, but it was the ermine-bordered cloak over it all that drew the eye. It was almost entirely cloth of gold, bright in the noonday sun.

Clever, that cloak. It drew attention to her height and straight back while hiding away the squareness of her shoulders. I’d never considered the First Prince to be particularly beautiful, but she’d certainly mastered dressing to her advantage better than anyone I’d ever met.

“A beautiful cloak,” Akua Sahelian mused. “Yet chosen, I think, more to contrast the other being worn than to add lustre to her hair.”

When the Doom of Liesse had returned to stand among my council this morning and I had not cast her out, none had spoken a word of it. Vivienne made it a point to rarely speak to her directly and never offer more than frosty hostility, but this once she let out a small noise of agreement. I could see why. Taking in the party that inevitably followed someone of Cordelia Hasenbach’s rank should they go anywhere in public, I saw more than just the expected assembly of nobles and generals. There were Named, too, and only one of them wore a cloak.

Hanno’s suit of plate was simple but beautifully made, the work of his Bitter Blacksmith, and the cloak pale as driven snow that he wore over it only added to the elegant austerity of him. His dark hair was cut even shorter than usual, little more than stubble, but it suited his plain and honest face well. With the sword belted at his hip and the ease of his carry, he looked like a warrior-king of the old breed. I could easily understand why people had come to call him Prince White. A man like that would have drawn a following even if he’d not whelped miracle after miracle in the defence of Procer as Hanno of Arwad very much had.

I could not help but note that while there were two people just behind the First Prince – dear Frederic of the pretty curls and skilled hands was one, so the solemn man whose helmet was painted with a red crown had to be Prince Otto of Bremen – the Sword of Judgement was not one of them. He’d been left in the general party, a dozen feet behind.

“By rank, he should be standing at her side,” I murmured. “He’s a high officer of the Grand Alliance.”

“What Grand Alliance?” Vivienne asked. “Procer is divided and dying, the Dominion is far and spent. This coalition lives or dies on our say. If it does not offend you, Catherine, what can anyone do about it?”

I grimaced. Razin and Aquiline were further back in our column, leading their company of riders, so at least there’d been no risk of them hearing that. It wasn’t that the Levantines had taken that many casualties, since practically speaking Procer alone had lost more soldiers in the first year of the war than the Dominion had fielded throughout it. It was more that, unlike my Army of Callow and the wealthy principalities of Procer, the Levantines had not reinforced the forces they sent north. It was a large army by their standards, involving most of their trained warriors, and if Cordelia hadn’t begun feeding them and paying for their equipment halfway through the war they would never have been able to afford fielding it this long.

Lacking reinforcements and grounds to recruit, their losses had accumulated even as their fund ran out. The end of the Isbili dynasty had only worsened their internal issues, according to the Jacks – who had stolen Proceran spy reports, since we had no eyes that far south – since even though they’d essentially been figureheads they’d still been a stabilizing influence. Now the Dominion of Levant lacked a reason to be anything more than a pack of squabbling petty kingdoms and it was only the First Prince’s intervention that’d both prevented civil war and kept some manner of commerce going on even as tensions rose. While it was underselling the Dominion to call it spent, in my opinion, Vivienne wasn’t exactly wrong either.

With every battle they had less strength to bring to bear, and there was no realistic way that trend could be turned around.

“That is the very reason such a pretty trick will fail,” Akua idly said. “When the order of things collapses, what does a man like the Sword of Judgement care for traps of courtesy?”

Her words turned out to be prophecy. I spurred on my horse, my knights parting for me, and Cordelia broke away from her two companions in the same gesture. So did Hanno, riding past a glaring Prince Otto and blank-faced Prince Frederic to catch up to Cordelia as she approached me. I rather admired that the First Prince’s face betrayed not a hint of her feelings, though I’d bet rubies to piglets that she was coldly angry. The people in the cheering crowd, shouting her name and mine and Hanno’s, they wouldn’t realize what had just happened. The nobles would, though, and they’d also see that there was nothing Cordelia could do about it. Some would instead choose to take from the sight that Hanno was rude and gasping beyond his rank, but this wasn’t peace time.

Like Akua said, courtesy mattered a lot less when the world was ending.

“Your Majesty,” the First Prince greeted me, a warm smile on her face. “Salia is brightened for your return.”

Her voice carried, all the more since the crowd had been made to settle since she’d begun riding forward. I’d never actually seen Cordelia have a genuine warm smile about anything, certainly not one that wide, so it always amused me to see how she used their like to play up our rapport in public. It helped her keep her princes in line, though, so I didn’t particularly mind.

“Your Most Serene Highness,” I replied in Chantant, smiling back and pitching my voice to carry as well. “I return with good tidings: Praes is settled, and now joins us in war against Keter!”

There was some surprise, but soon after the crowd began roaring in approval. Ah, the times we lived in. Who would ever have thought that a mob in the streets of Salia would ever shout themselves hoarse celebrating Praesi? Not me, and I’d lived a stranger life than most. Under cover of the shouts I nodded my greetings to Hanno, who had been waiting for us to finish tolerantly.

“Lord White,” I said. “I hear you helped General Abigail pull the Third Army out safely. My thanks for that.”

“Your Majesty,” Hanno replied, offering a nod. “I could not have held Hainaut had she not been the anvil to my hammer. It’s me who thanks you for lending such a sharp sword to our efforts.”

His own friendly smile was not fake in the slightest, I thought. He was not the sort of man to feign amity where it was not. I offered him a quirk of the lips, but little more. We had yet to reconcile from the aftermath of the Arsenal, the odd friendship we’d once had long in disrepair. I had sworn an oath to Tariq to mend that bridge, but I had to be careful of how I did. A misstep here in Salia could have grave consequences. With the first round of greetings done the ceremony could proceed and it began in earnest. Under the eyes and cheers of the crowd the great nobles and commanders in Salia greeted the ones I had brought, Razin and Aquiline reunited with their fellow lord and lady of the Blood for the first time in over a year.

It was all very civil and friendly – I winked at Frederic when he caught my gaze, getting a roguish grin in answer – and every inch of it had been put together so the sight of us would reassure the people of Salia that the world was not ending. It very much was, of course, but considering that with the amount of refugees we’d seen camped outside the capital had likely swelled to entail a million souls the last thing we needed was a panic. However deserved it might be. The procession continued on together, showing off how friendly and allied we all were, until we began to approach the Lineal and its bevy of palaces. There we parted ways, though not before Hasenbach took me aside for a short talk.

“I have had word from the dwarves,” she told me.

My fingers tightened.

“About time,” I angrily bit out.

The anger was not directed at her. It was the Kingdom Under that’d been taking its time, its representatives insisting that the Grand Alliance’s request for talks was not within their mandate to arrange. While it was true that in principle the half-dozen dwarves were there only to negotiate sales of arms and the granting of loans, in practice they’d been ambassadors of the King Under the Mountain. Vivienne and I suspected they’d been putting us off because they were waiting for the result of some military push they’d made underground, while Cordelia had instead suggested internal divisions.

“Indeed,” Cordelia tightly said. “Though they now act swiftly. This morning I was granted an audience with a formal emissary at noon tomorrow.”

I frowned.

“They knew I was arriving,” I noted.

“Most likely,” the First Prince agreed. “Naturally, I would request your presence.”

“Naturally,” I echoed with a smile. “I’ll dust off my courtesies in preparation, then. We doing this with a full Grand Alliance roster or appointed representatives?”

“Lady Itima and Lord Yannu have agreed that representatives would simply the talks,” she said. “It will hold, unless the other half of the Blood disagrees.”

“They won’t,” I said.

The lordlings trusted me enough to speak for the Grand Alliance, at least, though no doubt the Dominion would want a seat at the table the moment things began to get formalized. The First Prince nodded. There was a short moment of silence.

“You have, I think, grasped the lay of our troubles from that scene at the greeting,” Cordelia finally said.

“I had something of an idea even before,” I neutrally replied.

“Perhaps we ought to have tea tomorrow evening, then,” the First Prince lightly said. “It has been too long since we talked.”

It’d been like a week, actually, but I got her drift. She wanted an opportunity to speak a little more freely in private, and she wanted it as soon as possible.

“It better not be that horrible bitter stuff you love,” I warned. “I’ve drunk actual poison that tasted better.”

She smiled the smile of someone who was going to thoroughly enjoy trying to bully me into drinking it again.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Cordelia Hasenbach smiled.

Lying, like a goddamned liar.

It was not unexpected that I’d get visitors not long after settling into the palace, but to be honest I’d expected it to be either officers from the Third Army or Procerans. Instead I was genuinely surprised when a servant announced the name of my first visitor: Secretary Nestor Ikaroi of Delos. Considering that as far as I knew the League of Free Cities did not yet have a formal presence in the city, I hadn’t anticipated anyone from there calling on me. Last I’d heard, the armies of the League had just begun to reach northern Iserre. I’d always liked the old man, though, and since I had no reason to turn him away I had him brought to me.

I’d been granted this palace as my lodgings every time I visited Salia and Vivienne had used it in my absence, so I had a place in mind to receive him. It wasn’t actually one of the dozen salons that infested this place, a winter palace meant to accommodate large balls, but rather one of the smaller rooms adjoining the great ballroom. See, all these fine Proceran folk come here for dancing and debauchery liked a drink. It was only natural there’d be a bar in one of the side rooms, where a wild spread of wines and liquors could be asked for. The place wasn’t fully stocked, since Cordelia had been cutting costs everywhere, but it had enough left to make it worthwhile.

Besides, there was something pleasantly familiar about standing behind the counter with the drinks.

Nestor Ikaroi was announced by a Proceran crier and allowed in by legionaries, giving me my first look at the man in quite a while. His hair was striking: long and pure white, it was kept in a ponytail going down his back. The pureness of the colour contrasted with his wrinkled skin, which had the look of old leather, and made his blue eyes stand out. On each cheek he bore two tattooed stripes, one blue and one black. The old man was a Secretary, as high as one could rise in the ranks of the Secretariat. There were only ten askretis of that rank in all of Delos and he was said to be the oldest. He looked, I thought, rather vigorous. Like the war had spared him, unlike the rest of us.

“Secretary Nestor,” I said, leaning against the counter. “Welcome.”

“Queen Catherine,” he replied, bowing low. “It is a pleasure to be in your presence once more.”

I waved that away, but I was smiling. His genuine friendliness had long kept him my favourite of the high-ranking League diplomats.

“Can I offer you a drink?” I asked. “There’s a bit of everything in here.”

“All the more luxurious,” the old man said amusedly, “for having a queen pouring them. Is it perhaps true, as your subjects claim, that you once ran a tavern in Laure?”

I scoffed. Ran a tavern? I’d been much too young and poor to own anything but the clothes on my back and the coin I’d saved up for the War College.

“I asked first,” I said.

“Are you perhaps familiar with isitos?” he asked.

“Heard of it,” I said. “Fig liquor, usually cut with water and leaves of mint.”

“The custom in Delos is to use a quarter orange instead of the lime,” he replied, “but either way would be fine.”

I went looking and though there were lemons there did not appear to be limes. There was mint, however, and two bottles of isitos. I presented them to the old man, who without hesitation chose the smaller one. From Penthes, he told me, which for all its many sins made excellent liquor. I made two tall cups of it, one for each of us, and handed him his own.

“I was a waitress, at a place called the Rat’s Nest,” I told him. “The first roof I ever owned was when Malicia granted me Marchford as my demesne.”

Blue eyes brightened. Nestor Ikaroi has close ties to the scholars of Delos’ famous libraries, particularly those whose duty was to chronicle the history of Calernia as accurately as possible. Their histories were said to be the finest of the continent bar none. As a result, rather like a magpie the old man tended to be delighted whenever I tossed a few details about either my life or my campaigns his way. He sipped at the drink and smiled, praising it, and I tried it myself. It was actually pretty decent, I thought. Not smooth in the slightest, the burn was still felt in the throat, but the water and mint eased the taste of liquor. I could almost taste the figs.

Some idle talk was had, but I was a busy woman and he knew it. Soon enough he got to the reason he’d come here.

“I was instructed by Empress Basilia to approach you in private,” Secretary Nestor frankly said. “With the assent of the League.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“That sounds like foreign politics,” I said. “Which are the sole province of the Hierarch.”

The Republic would be furious if they learned Anaxares the Diplomat was being circumvented. Not that, as far as I knew, they were ever not furious.

“Ah,” the white-haired man smiled, “but this is a different matter. On the behalf of the Protector of the League, I am approaching an ally to discuss a common enterprise.”

Meaning they’d finally found a way to work around the absence of the Hierarch that wouldn’t send Bellerophon on the warpath and damage the foundations of the League. Basilia, as Protector, was charged with the defence of the League of Free Cities. Anything that could be made to fit under that aegis was fair game, even if it meant walking a very narrow line with the powers of the officer of Hierarch.

“That’s a lot of power you’re giving a hereditary office,” I noted.

He smiled like an old, patient shark.

“Should she overstep, a majority vote is all that is required to declare a matter under the jurisdiction of the Hierarch,” Secretary Nestor said.

Ah, so that was how they were going to keep her in line. The League wasn’t a kingdom like Callow, its laws didn’t really care for precedent. If a king was allowed a power in Callow once, it pretty much became a power of the royal house unless civil war pried it out of their grasp. In the League, though, all that was needed was enough of the cities agreeing a right did not exist for it not to. No doubt common ground was already being found behind closed doors between cities worried by Empress Basilia’s ascendancy. It’d be a struggle to the death, I thought, until either the office of Protector was reduced to a ceremonial title or the opposing cities were slowly stripped of their independence.

It was also, at least for now, not my fucking problem. For once.

“That’ll get interesting,” I said, meaning it. “I’m all ears, Secretary. What can I do for my friends in the League?”

“Given your understanding of the powers and prerogatives of the Hierarch,” he said, “you will understand, I think, that it is not possible for the League to sign onto the Liesse Accords.”

“Not at present, yes,” I said, frowning.

It’d count as foreign policy, so only their long-lost madman could actually put a quill to parchment to bring the League into the fold.

“That is an unfortunate situation, given that Empress Basilia is an ardent partisan of the Accords and many of us share her opinion,” Secretary Nestor said.

I almost smirked. Say what you would about Basilia Katopodis, but she’d not forgotten who had backed her when she’d gone off to campaign around the Free Cities. I’d been her patroness and while my leverage had weakened with her rise to prominence she had not cast aside her old debts. She’d back me for the Accords and the war on Keter, which had been what I wanted most from her.

“I do not have a reputation for patience, I know,” I said, “but you would be surprised.”

The old man bowed.

“Yet we would offer a gesture of goodwill within our means,” he said. “The members of the League, save for Bellerophon which is still putting the matter to vote, have adopted laws of the same text.”

I hummed, reluctantly impressed. That was certainly an alternative. It’d lack the teeth of the actual Accords, of course, which laid down provisions for its enforcers to be able to hunt Named breaking the terms across the territory of all signatory nations, but it would still be a great step forward. Neither villainy nor heroism would be allowed to be made illegal and there would be limitations on the use of both diabolism and angel-calling. I was, I decided, being courted. Or my goodwill was, anyway. Which meant the League was now going to ask me for a favour.

“A greatly appreciated gesture,” I said. “It shows adherence to the spirit of the Accords, which is perhaps even more meaningful than ink on parchment. Though it seems it my friends from the south helping me, instead of the other way around.”

I ended that on a smile, thin as it was. Nestor Ikaroi took my hint that I’d like to see the bill for the goods now and did not dance around, which I appreciated.

“While the League is committed to ending the threat of the Dead King,” the old man said, “concerns have been raised about the feasibility of such a deed.”

I sipped at my drink.

“I won’t pretend it will be easy,” I said. “You know better. But I wouldn’t be leading my armies into the storm if I did not believe victory possible.”

If it came to that, if all was lost and Calernia beyond reclaiming, I’d hole up behind the Whitecaps as long as possible while building a fleet to lead an exodus across the Tyrian Sea.

“The concern,” he delicately said, “is not of a military nature. It is our understanding that you have mustered great armies in the east and brought back the greatest sorcerers of Praes.”

I nodded, frowning.

“It is a political concern, then,” I said.

“Swiftly tires the horse with two riders,” Secretary Nestor quoted.

I kept my face calm. Yeah, perhaps it’d been too much to hope that the League wouldn’t have noticed the tensions rising at the heart of the Grand Alliance. Now they were wary of bringing their armies in what was beginning to have the shape of a schism just as the Dead King began devouring the Principate. That was, I grimly admitted, a fair concern to have.

“A temporary state of affairs,” I said.

“We share the opinion,” he said. “I am simply charged to express the Empress’ curiosity.”

“About?”

“Who you believe will be sitting the saddle,” the old man said.

Gods. That was what the entire reason he’d come here today, wasn’t it? They wanted to know who I’d back, if it came down to it. The First Prince of the Sword of Judgement.

“That’s not for me to decide,” I said.

A pause.

“May I be frank, Queen Catherine?” Secretary Nestor said.

I waved him on.

“While you show wisdom in not standing too close to the flame,” he said, “it is an undeniable truth that it is not possible for either to rise with, if not your support, then at least your tacit approval. Your influence is too deeply entrenched.”

And he wasn’t wrong. I’d done it on purpose, too. Being the representative for Below under the Truce and Terms, standing as Queen of Callow and First Under the Night. Warden of the East, now. I’d accrued so much authority that, while I might not be able to make the choice of who rose to command Good for the end of the war on Keter, I would be able to refuse that choice and very possibly make it stick. I’d seen this as a conflict between Cordelia and Hanno, but in the eyes of everyone else I was just as much of a danger. If I refuse to work with whoever won and took my armies home, it would not be a stretch to say that the war was lost. And trying to approach either of them might be seen as a foreign nation back a horse, so I’m actually safer for the League to talk to. Ikaroi was not, I realized, the last envoy who would approach me over this. There would be others, and beyond all the courtesies and the flattery all of them would be addressing me using the same title: kingmaker.

I sipped at my drink, hiding my dismay. I’d wanted to keep my distance as much as was possible, but it was now clear to me there would be costs to that. Would the League keep supporting the war if Procer seemed about to tear itself apart again and I was unwilling to step in? That Nestor Ikaroi was here at all spoke to hesitation. He was not so much invested in my answer as in my having an answer: someone I’d back, a designated winner. That was what Basilia and the League really wanted, the assurance that this would not get messy. Who long before Praes asked the same, or the Clans? I set the drink down.

“It has not come to that,” I finally said. “Nor will it. I intend to mediate.”

“Of course,” Secretary Nestor said, politely unconvinced. “Yet, I must ask, should mediation fail. If a choice must be made?”

I clenched my fingers, unclenched them. It was playing with fire to get too deeply involved. But I wasn’t sure it was an option not to.

Necessity, as always, was queen.

“If it comes to that,” I quietly said, “I will let you know who’s to sit the saddle.”