A Practical Guide to Evil

“Surely Salia is even larger,” Arthur ventured. “It was raised in fertile lands near a river, not at the heart of the Wasteland.”

“In size Ater is larger,” I noted. “Entire sections of it are usually abandoned, though, and Salia definitely has more people in it.”

The Squire eyed the capital of the Dread Empire with a skeptical look on his face, which had me smothering a smile. Back when I’d first come to Ater I’d been too wrapped up into myself and what Amadeus was teaching me to really take it in properly, but arriving as part of an invading army was giving my fellow orphan a bit more perspective.

“I don’t see how they can feed that many people,” Arthur admitted. “Or even have enough drinking water. Is it an underground source like Hainaut?”

“Five different underground lakes,” I confirmed. “The Miezans built a bunch of enchanted funnels when they first took over the city that feed a system of fountains anyone can take from, but there’s been works since. Dread Emperor Vile made aqueducts and cisterns when the population got too large and Dread Emperor Tenebrous-”

“Isn’t that the one who turned into a giant spider?” the Squire asked, sounding amused.

“Allegedly,” I snorted. “No knows for sure, though there sure are a lot of them under the city nowadays. Anyhow, Tenebrous made an enormous reservoir to catch rain and freeze it, a reserve for when the city is in drought.”

It was a pleasant change to be able to tell when Scribe was approaching. Like a touch in the back of my mind, a star I could see shining in the black whenever I closed my eyes. One of many.

“Vile’s cisterns were dismantled under Dread Emperor Venal,” Eudokia said, standing right behind Arthur.

Who nearly jumped out of his skin, swallowing a curse. It was a nostalgic sight: she used to do the same to me back when I was the Squire.

“That’s the one who thought Ater was a shithole and tried to build his own capital, right?” I asked.

“Indeed,” Scribe agreed. “The cisterns were lined with silver for purity enchantments, he had them broken down to use the metal in coinage.”

Well, the man had come by his regnal name honestly.

“They were never replaced?” Arthur asked.

“Much later,” Scribe replied. “Maleficent the Second had the silver statues in Delos’ great library melted down and used for replacements after the Secretariat tried to refuse her access to their histories.”

She’d had a way with insults, Maleficent the Second, when she wanted to make a point. It was said she’d had the third of the Magisterium that’d refused to surrender to her enslaved and forced into the Spears of Stygia as an admonishment.

“So thirst isn’t going to make them surrender,” Arthur said. “What about food, though?”

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Do you want a lecture on how the imperial tax system works?” I drily asked.

“Is it murder?” the boy drily replied. “I’m guessing murder is involved.”

“Ater has the largest granaries in the country,” I told him. “They’re massive, the size of palaces.”

“Even with the field ritual gradient and rotations introduced under Nefarious, the fields around the city can only feed a little under half of Ater,” Scribe said. “The remainder comes from taxes. High Seats are charged with collecting a tenth of the harvest in their lands and that of their vassals, which is then sent to Ater.”

“Independent lords can have harsher or lighter burdens, depending on whether or not the Tower likes them,” I added, “and the freeholders of the Green Stretch are bound to sell a third of their harvest to the Tower at a fixed price.”

Less than it was worth, usually, but it was part of the terms they leased the land from the Tower at.

“Malicia improved the yields for Ater significantly during her reign,” Eudokia admitted, “by changing the laws so that lords could pay part of their monetary taxes to the Tower in food instead. Poorer lords with good years leaped at the opportunity, and with Callowan grain pouring in all the while there is a truly prodigious amount of foodstuffs in the city at the moment.”

“We’re not going to starve them out,” I summed up. “They’ve got six months in them, at least, and maybe as much as a year if they ration severely enough.”

We did not have six months, I kept to myself. Cordelia believed that Procer would finally break in five, but we had to leave Praes before that: it’d take us at least a month and a half to return west and half a month to muster for the attack on Keter. We had three months here, to be generous, but that’d be a razor-thin margin. Two was more realistic, two and maybe the odd week tossed it on top of it. Which meant we would need to either force a surrender or take the city by force, storming the walls. I was very much trying to avoid the latter, because the last of the Legions would bleed us dry for it. The entire city was a fucking deathtrap of old artefacts and half-buried monstrosities. If we didn’t get several demons tossed at us before this was over I’d eat my crown. I cast a look at Scribe.

“You needed me for something?”

She nodded.

“There is word from the High Lady of Kahtan,” Eudokia said.

Takisha Muraqib was the leader of the largest chunk of enemy troops outside the city, so I’d made a point of trying to approach her for a settlement the moment I could. If she turned on Malicia a lot of nobles would follow her example, which might well take the city for us without an assault. Loyalty in Praes was a lot like horse racing: people loved a winner, but if the champion limped all bets were off.

“We’ll talk later,” I told Arthur. “Sit down with Apprentice and figure out tactics for fighting the Black Knight indoors or on a street, it’s where you’re most likely to run into her. If you come up with something solid, we’ll try it out on Named.”

I already had several particularly vicious exercises in mind. As far as I was concerned, you’d never really had to deal with a proper ambush until you tried grounds that the only son and pupil of Wekesa the Warlock had been given an hour to trap. Last time he’d temporarily ended gravity in a warded circle, which had been spectacularly amusing to watch on top of being very humiliating for the kids.

“I will, Your Majesty,” the Squire swore. “We’ve been talking over ideas on the march.”

“I’ll look forward to it, then,” I said.

The kid – young man, really, but it was hard to think of him that way – left promptly to get to it, which left me weathering Scribe’s mild gaze. I raised an eyebrow at her. The one over the dead eye, I was trying to train myself into doing that. It drew attention to the eye cloth, made the faint-hearted uncomfortable.

“Mentorship is not without danger,” Scribe said. “Especially mentorship of a hero.”

“I don’t teach him myself,” I said. “Been careful about that. All I’ve done with him is talk, never so much as a spar.”

“Given your own teacher, I would have thought you aware that the talking

is the most important part,” she replied.

“Named can learn from others without being pupils,” I said. “It’s not like every time you pick up a trick or a bit of tactics from someone you’re wedded to them as mentor and apprentice. I’ve learned things from Malicia and Captain. Hells, I learned from the Pilgrim once or twice.”

Not that he’d ever gone out of his way to teach me anything. Besides, I’d been careful to give neither tricks not tactics to Arthur Foundling. If I ever ended up on the other side of the field from the kid, I wanted as much of my repertoire still up my sleeve as I could fit.

“It’s a fine line,” Scribe noted. “I do not seek to scold, to be clear. It is your choice to make, and you have drunk from deeper wells of namelore than I ever did.”

“Always thought that was weird, to be honest,” I admitted. “The Calamities were around for almost sixty years in one form or another, it seems strange most of you never picked up more. Malicia too, I guess, but her I can understand. It’s not like any hero made it to the Tower in her lifetime.”

“It was always Amadeus who saw to those tactics,” she said, “so in a sense most of us never considered it any more necessary to acquire skill in this area than we would have thought to rival Wekesa or sorcery or Sabah in strength.”

“You still survive decades and decades as Named,” I said. “You had to have learned some things.”

“I suppose in detail my experience outweighs yours,” Eudokia mused. “Prior to the Truce and Terms being founded I’d encountered many more Named. But you’ve no doubt realized by now that there is no truly reliable method to deal with Named opponents.”

“Swords tend to work,” I drily said, “but I catch your drift. The same story you can ride to kill someone will get you killed against another.”

“I imagine I’ve read more stories and studied foreign myths than you have,” Scribe said, “for the same is true of Amadeus, but I do not have the… knack. I can make a plan and execute it, but I find it difficult to improvise and adapt a victory the way you did against the Arcadian courts, for example, or at the Princes’ Graveyard. It requires a mindset that I struggle with, as do most Named.”

“A lot of us tend to specialize,” I agreed.

“It narrows our understanding of the world and the way we seek victories,” Scribe said. “In that sense you are anomalous, though not unique.”

Yeah, I had no delusions there. My father’s way of using stories was different than mine but no less dangerous, and there’d been several points in the Tenth Crusade where Tariq had come very close to either killing or shackling me. Kairos had been up there too, the mad bastard, using the methods of the Old Tyrants with prescient skill. I also figured that Ranger had to be good at reading stories, to have survived this long antagonizing the amount of Named she had. Nobody acting like that lived as long as she had without being able to tell when a story was going to get you killed.

And there was, of course, the patron goddess of namelore waiting above it all: the Wandering Bard, the Intercessor. Who had declared war on me in Wolof only to disappear into thin air. I would have liked to call it impotence on her part, but that was the kind of delusion that’d get me killed. If I hadn’t seen her it’d been because she was moving her pieces into place, preparing her killing stroke. And since there was only one part left to this campaign, the fall of Ater, inside the City of Gates would be where she waited for me. I shook my head free of the thoughts.

“So what did High Lady Takisha reply?” I asked.

“She is willing to meet,” Scribe said. “Yet I would temper your expectations: Princess Vivienne believes Takisha won’t move unless we promise to back her for the Tower.”

“Is there anybody in this fucking country who doesn’t want me to back them for the fucking Tower?” I growled. “Any moment now some hell will spit out Traitorous so he can bloody well ask me too.”

“It is unusual that you would be so sought, in my opinion,” Scribe noted. “You have dealt with or rule over every major amalgamation of power east of the Whitecaps, an amount of influence that I some ways surpasses what Malicia wielded after the Conquest.”

I clenched my fingers and unclenched them. I’d made a claim, before raising High Lady Abreha from the grave. One of authority over others. Creation was moving to meet it. I was finding it easier to parse out what people wanted – my instincts already whispered that Vivienne was right, High Lady Takisha would not move without the Tower as a prize – but that was the lesser part of it. I could feel Named, now. When I closed my eyes, I could see them like stars shining the dark. Only it wasn’t all of them. Most heroes I couldn’t make out. Vivienne yes, and the Squire when he was close, but never the Silver Huntress. Authority, I thought. It was about authority.

And the clearest part of it was that Below smiled on me herding their own, a warden to villains.

“Influence doesn’t always pay off,” I finally said. “Let’s go talk with Juniper, Scribe. See what our options are before meeting up with High Lady Takisha.”

The Marshal of Callow wasn’t one to mince words, so she came out with it bluntly.

“Depends if they’re stupid about it or not,” Juniper said.

Our maps of Ater were accurate, as there hadn’t been any major works done in the capital since they’d been drawn, but they were unreliable in the sense that they’d didn’t tell us what parts of the city were being inhabited at the moment. Malicia had taken in refugees by the thousands so a lot of the empty districts would have filled up, but which and by who was anybody’s guess. Scribe and the Jacks had a few people in the city, but it was a drop in the bucket for a place that large. I doubted even the Tower had a full accounting to use, and for all her faults the empress had built up a prodigious bureaucracy in her seat of power.

“I’m not going to stand here and defend the stock of Praesi aristocracy,” I said, “but let’s assume they won’t make the worst possible choices.”

“Then we’re in a tricky position,” Juniper said. “When it comes down to it, Ater isn’t really a city that can be sieged the traditional way. It’s the incarnation of a logistical pit: to surround a city this large with any real strength, enough to keep away sorties, you need an army large enough it’s impossible to feed in this region.”

Which meant massive supply lines stretching over some of the most dangerous lands on Calernia, in constant danger in collapse before enemy soldiers even got involved. If you were a foreign army, anyway. The High Seats are much more manageable wars on their hands, which went some way in explaining why so few external enemies had been successful against Ater compared to internal ones.

“That much we’re agreed on,” I said. “We’re not going to try, and by the looks they’re well aware of that.”

Our eyes moved the map between us. Ater had nine gates, massive things that had once needed specially bred monsters to be opened or closed until they were replaced by gear mechanisms a century or two back. Of those nine gates, three were currently still open. The Army of Callow was encamped to the west of the capital, near an abandoned town that had large and deep wells, but the three gates on the eastern side of the capital were wide open. Which only made sense, given that a gaggle of nobles from all over Praes had brought around thirty thousand men from various private armies and encamped there. They’d not entered the city, as it was against the laws of the Empire to bring troops inside the capital without permission and no one was yet ready to move against Malicia, but our scouts confirmed there was constant movement through the gates.

“High Lady Abreha is but a week behind us,” Scribe noted. “Her army tips the balance of power in our favour.”

“Eh,” I hedged.

“We can likely beat the noble armies on the field,” Juniper agreed. “They have no unified command structure or proper organization.”

“And they’ve got a lot of household troops, but they’ve also got a large proportion Taghreb tribal levies,” I said. “Good raiders and irregulars, not so great in a shield wall. In a stand-up fight on plains, we’ll smash that army to pieces.”

“It will not give us that fight, I take it,” Eudokia ventured.

“They’ll retreat into the capital,” I said. “Use us as leverage for getting their troops inside without officially rebelling against Malicia. Given that her trustworthy forces are running thin, she’ll likely have to bend.”

“The remaining Legions are around eight thousand strong,” Scribe noted, “but even my people never got a good read on the total number of Sentinels. Too many of them never leave the Tower.”

“You gave us a floor of eight thousand so I’m assuming at least ten,” I noted. “I’m skeptical how good they’ll be in a fight, considering their heads are supposed to be fucked to the Hells and back to make them perfectly loyal, but it shouldn’t matter anyway considering most of them will be tied up keeping the city from falling apart. I’d be surprised if Malicia can shake loose more than two or three thousand to throw at us.”

“Pickler believes she can breach the capital’s walls, and if she does I believe we can take Ater after High Lady Abreha reinforces us,” Juniper said. “But that holds only if the nobles stay out of it. Otherwise they’ll bog us down in the outer districts and we’ll be forced out by spellfire.”

We were at a massive magical disadvantage here, even with Masego weighing heavily on the scales. The sheer amount of mage cadres we’d be facing if the enemy got to mobilize fully against us was pretty daunting. There were at least a few hundred mages capable of High Arcana in Praes, and almost all of them would be shooting at us. And that was without even getting into diabolism, which I saw as pretty much inevitable. It was a historical staple of Praesi getting cornered.

“Keeping the nobility divided and unable to coordinate defences seems a priority, then,” Scribe said. “Should I begin arranging assassinations?”

“Not yet,” I said, then bit my lip. “Assassin, could he get High Lady Takisha?”

If she got killed, her High Seat would tear itself up over succession and Kahtan would no longer be able to serve as the banner under which all the lesser Taghreb nobility gathered. And the Taghreb were where the manpower was at, right now. The Wasteland had bloodied itself with continued civil war, while the Hungering Sands hadn’t really seen any action aside from raids since Foramen was seized by surprise. If we broke up the southerners into smaller squabbling blocs and then hit Ater before someone could step into the power vacuum, it was possible they’d stay out of the fight.

“Takisha is remarkably paranoid when it comes to her personal safety,” Scribe admitted. “Three layers of amulets at all times and frequent body doubles. Even odds Assassin would get to her, being conservative.”

“We’re holding back on that, then,” I said. “Look up targets that would destabilize the coalition behind her, but I’m not pulling the trigger on that yet.”

If we took a swing and missed it’d make negotiating with her pretty awkward afterwards. Praesi didn’t take this sort of thing as personally as most people would, but it certainly wouldn’t win me any favours.

“None of that matters when we haven’t addressed the dragon in the hut,” Juniper said. “There’s an army as large as all of ours combined marching on Ater as we speak.”

“Three weeks away, at the current pace,” Scribe said. “Matters could be resolved here before it arrives.”

“I’m not sure that’d be an improvement,” I admitted. “Until we know who the warlord leading the Clans is I’m not keen on punching a hole in the walls of Ater.”

Juniper snorted.

“Let’s not take the fucking city only to have to hold its busted walls against one hundred thousand orcs,” she summed up. “The military wisdom of the College shines in us still, Catherine.”

I grinned back at her.

“Wisest heads of the age, Hellhound, that’s us,” I replied.

Scribe let out a little choking sound but did not go as far as contradicting us.

“We’ve sent scouts their way and I know Hakram’s still alive,” I said. “I’m inclined not to think the worst.”

I could feel his Name, see its star out in the black.

“If Dag Clawtoe had been elected, Hakram would have scried us by now,” Juniper retorted. “I don’t like it.”

“If the Blackspears were in charge they’d be burning Nok by now, not approaching Ater,” I pointed out. “I won’t pretend I’m not concerned, Juniper, but Adjutant will bring this home. He always does.”

“We should prepare for the eventuality that they are foes, at least,” the Hellhound pressed.

I grimaced and thought it over. It’d split our focus, but to be honest at the moment there wasn’t much for the Army of Callow to do. We were preparing an offensive for when Abreha – and High Lord Dakarai of Nok, who’d joined her with a small retinue – arrived with her troops, but it would be Pickler and her sappers handling the most of that. Charging into a breach wasn’t the kind of fighting that required extensive preparations, just guts and steel.

“Do it,” I finally said. “But make sure the general staff knows it’s theoretical. I don’t want half our camp convinced we’re going to be fighting the Clans.”

Fighting a warlord – maybe even just rumours we would – might actually cause desertions from the part of my armies that’d been the steadiest through several wars. As far as I knew, the loyalty of the Legions had never been tested in this manner and I suspected it was for good reason. A lot of orcs put loyalty to the Legions or the Army of Callow higher than allegiance to abstract things like the Tower or my crown, but I wasn’t so sure that loyalty would win out if it was their own clans on the other side of the field.

“I’ll keep it quiet,” Juniper said.

“Which leaves only one force unaccounted for,” I said. “Amadeus of the Green Stretch.”

Scribe studied me.

“You’re sure he’s here?” she asked.

“I know Ranger’s in the city,” I said. “And they’ve stayed together until now.”

I’d actually learned a little something courtesy of the Lady of the Lake, aside from her rough location: whatever it was that bound me to Named, it was possible to cut it. Temporarily, at least. The… tie began to reform after half a day had passed, more or less, and from what I could feel Ranger was becoming increasingly irritated at having to cut it off again and again. I bet Sever would have done it permanently, I thought with some amusement. I’d have to remember to tell her when we ran into each other, along with a pleasant question about how it felt to be inferior to inferior to the Saint even posthumously.

“He’s a dangerous man, Catherine, but he doesn’t have an army,” Juniper said. “There’s only so much he could do.”

I winced at that, and so did Eudokia. There was a moment of silence, the two of us waiting for something brutally ironic to happen, but nothing showed up save an increasingly puzzled look on the Marshal of Callow’s face.

“Don’t repeat that,” I finally said. “It might end up costing us.”

She still looked skeptical, but in matters of namelore she knew better than to contradict me. I dragged myself to my feet, massaging my upper leg to press down on a cramp. Had I taken herbs today? I couldn’t recall. I’d gotten too used to Hakram arranging these things for me. Might as well have another cup if I was going to be riding Zombie.

“A short detour and we’ll get moving,” I told Scribe. “Let’s go find out what High Lady Takisha has to tell us.”

Scribe despised riding horses even though she’d been doing it for decades, which I never ceased to find hilarious. Zombie disliked having to stay on the ground to keep up with the other Named and my escort of knights, but she perked up after I promised her meat when we returned to camp. She was unsettlingly fond of pig guts, which she ate very messily before grooming herself for hours. A truly vain creature, my mount. I approved. At this point I’d been through these little meetings often enough that I wasn’t surprised when the Praesi came in dressed richly enough to pay for a bridge across the Hwaerte and I didn’t bother to take it in the way I had with the Sahelians. No, this time it was a smaller detail I got stuck on.

I’d arranged a meeting only with High Lady Takisha, but there were three great aristocrats waiting for me.

The first was Takisha Muraqib, a handsome dark-haired woman in her fifties with a dignified air and enough gold on her it’d likely add up to several ingots if melted down. Arguably now the second most powerful in Praes, as the fall of Foramen to goblin hands had led all the Taghreb nobility to gather behind her. The second was High Lord Jaheem Niri of Okoro, a strikingly good-looking man with warm golden eyes and a roguish smile. He had to be what, in his mid-forties? He had a daughter a little younger than me, but she wasn’t his oldest. The real surprise, though, was the third. High Lady Wither of Foramen, once Matron of the High Ridge Tribe. Pickler’s mother.

Also the sworn enemy of High Lady Takisha, and according to my spies still very far away.

No wonder the Matrons of the Confederation of the Grey Eyries had sent word they were sending a delegation north to Ater to treat with me. It would be in part so they’d have a seat at the table after Ater fell, as I’d expected, but now a second reason was looking at me through pale yellow eyes. The High Lady of Kahtan might despise Wither and want to take Foramen from her, but that enmity was nothing compared to how much the Grey Eyries hated the traitor who’d turned on them in exchange for becoming recognized as High Lady by Malicia.

Still, this reception was a surprise and not a welcome one. It was taking me by surprise in multiple ways and suggesting there were undercurrents to imperial politics I’d not sniffed out. A dangerous thing, to treat carefully with. It was fortunate that I was such a dab hand at diplomacy these days.

“How long have the three of you stood so close?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “One hour, two? And no one’s dead. That has got to be some sort of record.”

I hear the knight behind me choke down on a snort. The Praesi were less amused. Wither was impatient, Takisha sneered and High Lord Jaheem raised his eyebrows in a way that suggested rolling them without ever actually doing it. Impressive trick, that.

“We greet you, Black Queen,” High Lady Takisha began, “and in-”

“Spare me the speech,” I cut through, tone flat. “I arranged talks with you, not three High Seats. I might be considered justified to see this as a breach of our truce terms, so let’s get to whatever point the three of you made yourselves to stand together to make.”

“This is poor diplomacy,” High Lord Jaheem said. “High Lord Sargon spoke better of you.”

“Sargon was a stepping stone, not the last thing between me and the end of this irritating little war,” I replied. “He got as much courtesy as I’ll ever afford High Seat. You, though?”

I smiled toothily.

“Count yourselves lucky this doesn’t begin and end with knives.”

“You don’t have enough knives to get this done, Black Queen,” High Lady Wither said, voice startling reedy. “That is our point. If you come for Ater steel in hand, you will lose.”

“That’s arguable at best,” I noted. “But I’ll generously assume you came with something to offer, since only a fool would think I’ve come to Ater just to walk away.”

“We are willing to support a negotiated settlement with the Tower,” High Lady Takisha said, tone irritated. “So long as the sovereignty of the Dread Empire remains untouched, there is some room for compromise.”

I cocked an eyebrow over my dead eye, unimpressed by the phrasing, and to my satisfaction I saw her glance at the cloth.

“I sacked Wolof without needing to break its walls, broke the Legions in Kala and now my army is camped beneath the very walls of the City of Gates,” I said. “If some room for compromise is the best you have to offer, we’ll be resuming this conversation after I’ve killed a few thousand more of you.”

“You would refuse terms without hearing them?” High Lord Jaheem said.

“I’d refuse to humour posturing,” I flatly replied. “You’re here to do me a favour, I broke through your front door and set fire to your house. If you want me to stop torching everything in sight, make it worth my while.”

“We would be willing to support armies being sent to aid the Grand Alliance,” High Lady Wither said. “It’s an open secret you’re badly in need of diabolists.”

“That’s a start,” I noted.

“The Blessed Isle can be formally ceded back to the crown of Callow,” High Lady Takisha said.

Huh, hadn’t seen that one coming. On the surface it was a worthless piece of land, considering it was a blackened wasteland ruined by my father’s use of massed goblinfire, but that was a surface perception only. It was a strategic stronghold, the best way to keep Praes penned on its side of the Wasaliti should it decide to get unruly.

“That’s worth something,” I agreed, “but it’s not why I’m here. The Tower would need to sign the Liesse Accords.”

They didn’t look too pleased by that, but neither were they surprised.

“We might support such a thing, given the right incentives,” High Lord Jaheem said. “The text as we’ve obtained has some… concerning inclusions.”

That sounded like someone after diabolism exemptions, which wasn’t happening, but I wasn’t above throwing some minor concessions elsewhere if that was what it took.

“The final draft of the Accords has not been made,” I said. “There is still time to negotiate.”

“That is reassuring to hear, Your Majesty,” High Lady Takisha smiled.

I just bet, I thought.

“And who would it be that negotiates the terms of the Accords for you?” I asked. “Who do you mean to replace Malicia?”

Akua, I guessed. Had to be. She was the only prominent person left in Praes with enough power to be considered and not enough enemies to be too badly opposed. And what a knife in the belly it would be for this lot, when turned away from them. Just in time for me to cram my father down their throats. Silence stretched on for a moment.

“We do not mean to replace the Dread Empress,” High Lady Takisha said. “We are loyal subjects, Black Queen.”

My eye moved between them, and appallingly enough they looked serious. Not about being loyal, that was just absurd, but about not supporting Malicia being deposed. At least not here and now.

“Dread Empress Malicia has made herself too much a foe of the Grand Alliance and an ally of the Dead King to be allowed to keep her power,” I plainly said. “You might have believed this to be negotiable, but allow me to now disabuse you of that notion.”

I leaned forward, cold-eyed.

“If I have to burn Ater to the ground around her to see her driven out of the Tower, I will.”

My gaze swept over all of them.

“If I must step over your mutilated corpses to get my way, do not believe for a moment I will hesitate. The Dread Empire has been nothing but thorn in our side as most of Calernia fights to hold back the annihilation of all life on this continent,” I said. “There is not a speck of sympathy left for any of you west of the Wasaliti: I could raze every High Seat and even the fucking heroes would applaud.”

I drew back, put on a friendly smile.

“Malicia is a stone around your necks,” I said. “Put up someone else and then we can talk.”

“Your threats are empty, Black Queen,” High Lord Jaheem said. “You do not have long before you must return west with diabolists, else this campaign will have doomed your allies.”

I met the man’s golden eyes with a cold smile.

“I still have months,” I said. “It’s my patience that’s in danger of running out, Jaheem Niri. Beware of that, while you still can.”

Yet even as I spoke, I knew there were no grounds no win here. I’d made a mistake, I could feel it. Not in refusing to bend over the matter of Malicia or making it clear how far I was willing to go over the matter, but somewhere else. Focusing, I could almost feel it out. Neither Jaheem Niri nor Wither were surprised, they had expected this, so it was High Lady Takisha who’d wanted this conversation to happen. Why? What did she gain? She wants to move them, my instincts whispered, but I could not yet tell to which purpose. I almost could if I focused, but somehow I was sure that if I closed my eyes the stars in the darkness would distract me. But Takisha had gotten something she’d wanted from this, that much I was certain of.

Time to cut my losses before she got more.

“There is no point to this conversation,” I stated. “I tell you only this: when we resume it, the terms will have grown starker.”

I left them to that, casually tossing in the insult of not giving proper courtesies while leaving. Already I was frowning, lost in thought. I’d just taken a hit without knowing about it until it was too late, and I still didn’t know what it’d been for. I did not have as clean a read on the forces at play in Praes as I’d thought I had, and if I kept it up it would cost me.

It was time to sharpen the same knives I’d wielded at the Graveyard.