Canticle

Chapter 15

Winters

Winters sat beneath the guttering lamp and pored over another volume from the Book of Dreaming Kings. Since her meeting with Ezra nearly a week before, she’d given as much of herself as she could spare to the long, winding row of shelves that stretched back to their earliest days in the Named Lands.

She’d started with the volumes that her grandfather had added, written down from his dreams with meticulous care, and now she read her father’s. So far, she’d found nothing, but she wasn’t sure exactly why she looked. The old man had told her that the book hadn’t changed until Windwir fell.

During my reign. Still, something in her longed for some clue, anything, that would negate his words or expand upon them. She replayed them again and again, and each time she saw the white lines of a scar upon his chest that was easily older than she was. Whoever Ezra was, he’d taken the mark of House Y’Zir a goodly while ago-when her father still lived. And her father had seen the fall of Windwir in his dreams, though the old man’s scar could well have been older than even that visitation.

Winters shuddered to think the cutting went back even farther.

She heard a low whistle and looked up.

Seamus, the oldest of her Council of Twelve, approached. Even in the dim light, his face was drawn and pale. “My queen,” he said in a low voice, “we are at alarm.”

She stood quickly, closing the book she read. “What is it?”

“We’ve received birds from the Summer Papal Palace,” he said. “They are under attack.”

“By whom?” The Papal Palace was under Gypsy protection, populated now by a few hundred Androfrancine refugees who had chosen not to make their way to the Ninefold Forest. She blew out her lamp and joined him at the entrance of the cavern that housed the book.

His mouth was a firm, white line. Then he spoke. “By us, it seems.”

She walked ahead of him, forcing him to keep up with her shorter legs. As they walked, her mind spun.

By us. Three weeks earlier, she wouldn’t have thought it possible. But now, after seeing the bodies of her own men with the mark of House Y’Zir carved into them and after hearing Ezra speak to the changing times and the rise of this so-called Crimson Empress, Winters knew that no matter how ludicrous it appeared on the surface, it could very well be true.

They followed the winding caverns upward until breaking into the wider, cavernous throne room with its wicker chair. Beside it lay the silver axe of her office, and she took it up before sitting.

Six of the Twelve were present, as were a handful of scouts and headmen. “What do we know?”

One of the headmen stepped forward. “We know that birds were spotted racing south and east.” He held a small bird himself, stroking its brown back. “The message invokes Androfrancine and Gypsy kin-clave.”

Winters extended a hand, and the headman slipped a small scrap of paper into it, tied still with white thread. She scanned the note quickly. It spoke of Marsh scouts at the gate and bore markings of a day earlier tied into its carrying thread. She looked up from the note. “Do we have scouts near the Palace?”

Seamus shook his head. “No. None that I’m aware of, Queen.”

Winters bit her lip and read the note again. It had come to her though it was unaddressed. But why? Surely, if they believed the Marshers besieged them, they wouldn’t send birds to her of all people.

“It could be a trap,” she said in a quiet voice.

“If so,” another of the Twelve said as he entered the cavern, “then it’s a convincing one.” All eyes turned to him and he frowned. “There’s smoke to the northwest,” he said. “The Papal Palace is burning.”

Winters felt the blood drain from her face. First, the assassinations. Then the caravans. Now, this. She wished Hanric were here. Or Rudolfo. Or even Neb. Surely one of them would know the best path she could take through this particular turn of the Whymer Maze.

Still, despite the confidence she lacked, the answer spelled itself out clearly. Winters sighed. “Ready my mount,” she said. “We ride at once.”

Seamus leaned close to her, and his hands moved in the dark sign language of House Y’Zir, his body shielding his words from prying eyes. Is my queen certain of the path she takes?

She nodded. I am, Seamus. Then, she said it aloud for the benefit of the others. “I am certain.”

The room emptied quickly as the men set about readying themselves. Winters hefted her axe, barely able to lift it with one hand, and stood. “I will need your aid, Seamus,” she said.

The old man bowed. “Yes, Queen.”

Winters frowned. “I’ve not needed armor before. Nor have I needed blades.”

“I will see to it,” he said.

As he scuttled off, she retreated to her private chambers to toss spare clothing and a sturdy pair of Gypsy boots into a knapsack. She also tossed in a tablet of parchment and a handful of pencils. She paused for a moment before the oak bureau that had been her father’s. There, sitting where she had left it upon her return from the mountain, was the vial of voice magicks.

Perhaps now I preach my first War Sermon.

The bitter taste flooded her mouth as she remembered that day atop the spine. She remembered the cold wind and the way the throne bit into her flesh, the way that her voice echoed across the craggy mountain peaks and how it moved along the hollowed-out, snow-swept canyons and valleys. It had been her first time with the voice magicks.

She took down the vial and tucked it into her knapsack.

There was a knock behind her and she turned. “Yes?”

Seamus entered bearing an armful that he spilled onto her narrow bed. “I’ve raided the armory,” he said. “I’m not sure how much of this will be useful to you.”

She pulled out a worn leather belt with a single long scout knife in an undecorated sheath. When she drew the blade it whispered against the leather sheath. She tested its edge with her thumb, drawing a beaded line of blood. She resheathed it and set it aside. She’d learned to fight at Hanric’s hands, though she’d not found herself very good at it. She’d mastered the sling but had virtually no sword or knife skills to speak of. She’d not taken to it, preferring instead to carefully write out her dreams and add them to the Book, trusting her shadow and the men he commanded.

Only now, I command them, she realized. She thought of Hanric sleeping in the ground and swallowed back the sadness that suddenly ambushed her.

Seamus was pulling bits of leather and chain free from the pile. “Some of these may fit you,” he said, “but they really weren’t intended for battle-more for training children.”

She nodded. He thinks we ride to battle. Winters feared he thought correctly. “What do you think we will find?”

Seamus paused, holding her eyes with his own. “Bodies,” he said.

She lifted up a leather cuirass from the pile and held it up to her chest. Cocking his head to one side, Seamus inspected it, then circled around behind her, cinching in the straps. She felt the hard leather flatten her breasts as he tightened it up. She held her breath until he finished, then let it out slowly. “And the attackers?”

He picked out a helmet-small and round and iron. He lowered it onto her head and frowned when it swallowed half of her face. He traded it out for another, then lifted her long, braided hair up and coiled it around the top of her head. “They are long gone by now, I’ll wager,” he said. “I’m more concerned about the others.”

Yes. Meirov’s rangers had been patrolling much farther north than custom since the assassinations, as had Turam’s border scouts. And with armies forming and marching slowly north these past few weeks, it was only a matter of time. The attack on the Summer Papal Palace could very well be what sparked war between her people and their neighbors to the south.

“I’ll send more birds from the trail,” she said. Winters strapped on the knife and turned; Seamus stepped back to inspect her. She drew the blade and thrust it menacingly. “How do I look?”

He snorted. “No offense, Lady Winteria, but you make for a ragamuffin of a soldier.”

She nodded, glancing to herself in the cracked mirror leaning haphazardly against her wall. “I do indeed,” she said. She turned one last time and sighed again. “But it will do.”

Ten minutes later, Winters rode at the head of a ragged line of soldiers and Marsh scouts. She unstopped the vial and tipped a mouthful of the voice magicks back into her throat. She waited, gently clearing her voice until she heard it catch and the sound of her cough rustled the pine trees.

“I am Winteria bat Mardic, Queen of the Marshfolk, and I ride under arms for the Summer Papal Palace. Who will ride with me and mine?”

The men and women around her roared, and it seemed each time she repeated the call that more and more voices cried out in reply around her.

As they rode, others joined them, bearded men fresh in their mud and ash, weapons tucked in belts or slung over shoulders, still strapping on their ragged bits of armor and in some cases still leading their horses and kissing their children good-bye.

Winters remembered the last time their army had gathered up, recalling vividly the pillar of fire and smoke that had once been Windwir, stark against the sky of Second Summer. She remembered Hanric’s bellowing call to arms, followed by that first War Sermon on the march south and those exhilarating, terrifying moments that marked the first time she’d left the Marshlands.

She remembered the armies-all of them-lined up below their standards at the edge of those blasted lands.

Funny, she thought, that she hadn’t wanted so badly to cry back then and she did not remember once being afraid for her people.

But now, doubt chewed upon her as she worried what waited for her and her people at the end of this road.

And try as she might, Winters found no War Sermon upon her tongue or within her heart to bring courage as they settled into their slow ride north.

Instead, she rode silently into the shadow of the Dragon’s Spine, her eyes fixed on the storm clouds that gathered ahead.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo growled beneath his breath and braced himself against the rocking of the ship. The storm had come up quickly, pummeling them the last thirty leagues into port, and now they hunkered down at the top of the stairs, waiting for the word to be given.

Rudolfo had wiled his days pacing the narrow cabin, taking no pleasure in the lavish meals but pretending nonetheless so as not to offend his host.

Rafe Merrique had changed little in the decades that had slipped past them. He was a bit more flamboyant and slower to speak, his long hair had gone iron gray, but at the core of him, he remained the pirate lord that Rudolfo remembered from his youth. Still, the vessel Kinshark was proof enough of how well the man had done in the intervening years.

It was smooth, well kept, and faster than fast. Merrique’s crew kept it well oiled, bringing down the sails each night and replacing them with sailcloth soaked in a portion of the hold that had become more a vat than anything else. He rotated his crew as often as his sails, giving them as much time off the powders as on.

Rudolfo had spent his life among his Gypsy Scouts, well versed in the ways of stealth and strength magicks, and yet he’d seen nothing like the Kinshark in all his days.

Still, even the wonder of the vessel hadn’t held his attention. His mind continued wandering north to his wife, to his son, when he wasn’t poring over the Kinshark’s maps and charts or seeking out Merrique’s insight as to where Tam’s iron armada might’ve fled.

“No one goes east but me,” Merrique had told him. “And that not so much now with the gray robes gone. That leaves south and west.”

Still, he hoped Petronus could shed light on that. If I can get to the old fox.

The ship rocked again, and Rudolfo heard the boatswain’s whistle. “Hang on to me,” Merrique said in a low whisper.

The hatch opened, and they scrambled out onto the wet deck quickly. Below Rudolfo’s feet, he saw nothing but roiling water, and the vertigo that took him tugged at his stomach. He forced his eyes closed and clenched the back of Merrique’s belt. Behind him, he felt his Gypsy Scouts doing the same with him.

They moved to the side of the ship and one by one, lowered themselves into the waiting longboat. Merrique pulled Rudolfo beneath a heavy canvas and they huddled there, pitching and tossing, as the magicked sailors pulled oar and guided them to shore.

Once they made landing, the tarp pulled away and Rudolfo stood, hopping lightly onto the waiting dock. They were in a seedier part of the city-a series of dilapidated river docks along the backside of a row of run-down taverns. Upriver, a cannery squatted over the river on wood pilings, smoke leaking from a dozen chimneys, rising up into the cloudy sky.

The rain pounded down on them, and Merrique motioned them toward the shelter of a rickety balcony. “We’re early,” he said.

At a nod from Rudolfo, the two Gypsy Scouts slipped into the shadows to keep watch.

Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “How well do you know this Esarov?”

Merrique laughed. “As well as I know you, I imagine. I met him when he was still with the Order, before he left it for a life of debauchery on the stage. There were certainly years of silence, but lately he’s meant good business for me.”

One of Rudolfo’s scouts whistled, low and long, from his position at the corner of the building. A group of men approached, laughing and singing as they came.

Rudolfo watched them, keeping Merrique in the corner of his eye. He felt exposed here, but it was easy to feel that way. Even now, he knew the captain’s men, magicked and armed, surrounded them. Still, he knew the fierce effectiveness of his Gypsy Scouts firsthand, had trained with them and watched them sweep a battlefield clean as a grandmother’s floor. He was unaccustomed to trusting someone else’s men with his well-being. He found his left hand twitching for the narrow sword on his belt.

The group of men staggered toward them, and Rudolfo saw that they huddled close around two men at their center-both hidden in ragged sailor’s clothing and cloth caps.

One of the men slipped past his cohorts. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of silver spectacles, pushing back his long hair to slide them over his ears. “You are Rudolfo,” he said.

Rudolfo nodded. “I am.”

The men kept at their singing, all but the old one in the middle, as the short, long-haired man leaned closer. “I bear tidings from Petronus. And I bring a charge for you to keep watch over.”

Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “You are Esarov, then,” he said. “The Democrat.” When he said it, he found the word distasteful in his mouth.

Esarov nodded. “I am. I know you seek Petronus for reasons of your own, but I’m afraid he is not available.”

Rudolfo considered the man’s face and read the half-truth upon it. “Where is he? He is under my protection.”

Esarov smiled, and Rudolfo frowned at it. “Rumor is that you nearly rode him down on the highway to Caldus Bay for what he did to Sethbert and the Order. Interesting that you still consider the Androfrancine your protectorate.”

“Interesting or not,” Rudolfo said, “he is, and I would know of his circumstances.”

“He is under house arrest at Erlund’s hunting estate,” Esarov said. “He turned himself in for trial by Jury of Governors-in exchange for this man.” Here, he pointed to the balding old man.

Rudolfo gave him a closer look. The men had stayed near him, guarding him as closely as they guarded Esarov. Even now, they took up positions at each door or alley within eyeshot of the rendezvous. He was not quite as old as Petronus, though he looked older in this moment. He was haggard and pale, several days unshaven, and disheveled with dark rings beneath his eyes. This, Rudolfo saw, was a man who had not slept in a day or two.

“Who are you?” Rudolfo asked him.

The man blinked. “I am Charles, Arch-Engineer of the School of Mechanical Science.”

Rudolfo’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re Charles?”

I bear a message for the hidden Pope Petronus. The metal man that Aedric, Neb and Isaak now pursued in the Churning Wastes.

The man nodded. “I am Charles.”

“You created Isaak.”

The old man looked perplexed. “Isaak?”

Rudolfo smiled and dug in his memory. Rudolfo had given Isaak his name. Before that he’d been known by a title and number. Rudolfo remembered that day in the tent at the edge of Windwir’s ruins. “Mechoservitor Number Three,” Rudolfo said.

Charles paled. “The one Sethbert paid my apprentice to rescript. The one that sang the spell.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Yes. He goes by Isaak now. He heads up the restoration of the library.”

Charles’s eyes came to life. “Then you found it. Sanctorum Lux was spared.” Relief flooded his voice with emotion.

“No,” he said. “We’re rebuilding from the mechoservitors’ memory scripts. We’ll restore a great deal but not everything.”

“And Three. Isaak. assists in this?”

Rudolfo shook his head. “No,” he said, “he doesn’t assist. He leads the effort-he’s planned it quite thoroughly. He studies human leadership behavior and then practices it.”

Charles shook his head in wonder. “Unbelievable.”

Rudolfo nodded. “I consider him part of my family.”

A low whistle cut off their introduction. “We’re finished here,” Esarov said, looking in the direction of the noise. Rudolfo followed his eyes. Already two of the Democrat’s men scrambled back toward them, motioning for them to leave. He looked back to Rudolfo. “Charles is under your care now. We need to go.”

Rudolfo couldn’t keep the growl from his voice. “Petronus is under my care as well, and I-”

“Petronus chose to give himself for this man,” Esarov said, cutting him off. “There’s nothing more to say here.” A small group of black-jacketed men appeared to their north, walking quickly toward them with hands on the hilts of their knives.

Rafe Merrique was already returning to the dock, whistling for them to follow.

As Esarov and his man gathered up, Rudolfo led Charles to the dock. Magicked hands reached up to pull the old man into the long boat and under the tarp. Next, the Gypsy Scouts climbed aboard and Rudolfo turned to join them.

A low voice materialized to his left and he jumped. “Guard Charles well,” it said, “and find Sanctorum Lux.”

Rudolfo looked and saw nothing. “Who is there?”

“A friend of Petronus’s,” the voice said. “He bid me pass this to you.” A sheaf of papers appeared-magicked hands thrust them at him.

He took them. “Have you seen Petronus? Is he well?”

The men in the black coats were calling out to Rudolfo, but they were too far away for him to pick out the words. Everyone but Rudolfo and the pirate had fled or climbed aboard the magicked longboat.

“Grymlis, I presume?” Merrique asked.

“Aye, Merrique,” the voice answered. Then, he added, “The mechoservitors should be able to cipher out Petronus’s notes.”

The name was familiar, but Rudolfo could not place it. He looked down at the bundle of papers, then tucked them into his shirt. The black-coats were nearer now, calling for them to stop. Merrique was already climbing into the boat, and hands reached toward Rudolfo as well.

“I will guard Charles well,” Rudolfo said. “I trust you’ll keep watch over Petronus?”

Grymlis snorted. “As well as I can from outside. Now go.”

Rudolfo nodded and let the hands pull him down into the boat.

When they reached the Kinshark and were again beneath deck, the first mate passed Merrique a note. “The bird came while you were away,” he said.

The pirate read it and passed it to Rudolfo.

Rudolfo frowned at the simple, uncoded message.

The Summer Papal Palace has fallen. The Marsh Queen rides to war.

Pylos and Turam march north.

The Ninefold Forest would have to respond, he realized. Their kin-clave with the Marshfolk and their protection of the Androfrancine remnant would require it. Of course, Jin Li Tam would know that. He looked up. “Is there time for me to send birds?”

Merrique nodded. “Certainly.”

Rudolfo excused himself and went to his cabin. He sat at the small table and stared at the message paper and ink needle. Beside it lay the packet of papers from Petronus, waiting for his attention. But before that, he had messages to craft. What he knew he must write in them weighed heavily upon him.

I should be home now, he thought. But the image of his son’s small, gray face caused him to shake off that feeling and lift the needle. Jin Li Tam was every bit the formidable strategist that he was-more so, even. He could trust her with this work as he did his own.

He scribbled the first message out in practiced triple code, then paused to reread it.

Esarov’s words earlier struck him. He did consider Petronus-and all of the Androfrancines-under his protection still. He took his word seriously, as his father had taught him, and he had taken that mantle during the war when Petronus offered it. Those refugees were his responsibility not just because of that, but because Petronus-that clever Franci behaviorist-certainly had known that when he bequeathed the vast wealth of the Order to Rudolfo that the Gypsy King would care for its refugees. But not just the refugees of Windwir. All refugees-some from the now-failed book houses of Turam, many from the Entrolusian Delta.

No, not refugees.

He thought of Neb out in the Wastes with Aedric and Isaak, beyond the bird, last time he’d received word from home. And now Winters no doubt prepared her first War Sermon to face some strange foe that arose within her own people. Rudolfo’s family had broadened to include even a metal man who carried the sorrow of genocide on his accidental soul.

I truly am a collector of orphans.

He felt the wind grab the sails as the ship moved downriver toward the open sea. Then Rudolfo pushed all other thought from his mind and gave himself to the notes he needed to send.

But even as he did so, he felt something grow within him that he was not accustomed to. It grew greater and stronger with each league of river they put behind them. Soon, he would be leaving the Named Lands for the first time in over two decades to find a mouse in a hayfield and leaving his Ninefold Forest Houses and their complex bonds of kin-clave in someone else’s hands for the first time since he took the turban at the age of twelve.

Rudolfo named the emotion he felt and sighed.

“I am afraid,” he said quietly to the empty room.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam cursed beneath her breath and felt the anger prickling her scalp. “He’s done what?”

Second Captain Philemus shifted uncomfortably. “He’s fled with Isaak and the Waste Guide Renard.”

She forced herself to breathe. Last night had been her night with Jakob, and he’d not slept at all. That had meant sleeplessness for her as well, until Lynnae came for him just as dawn tinged the sky pink. Not long after, she’d been summoned for this audience. She reached out for the note, and the Second Captain placed it in her waiting hand.

She was incredulous. Neb had run off over a week ago-along with Isaak and that Waste mongrel Renard-and she was just now finding out. “And why,” she asked, laying the message aside, “are we just learning this now?”

“There have been problems with the birds,” he said. “They’ve lost several over there, and their magicks don’t seem to hold. We’re not sure why.”

“So Aedric is back at the Gate now?”

The Second Captain nodded. “He awaits your orders.”

She looked down at the other two messages that had brought Philemus tapping at her door and sighed. One was from Winters, the other from Rudolfo. Her eyes went to Winters’s. The girl gathered her army and marched for the Summer Papal Palace in response to the distress birds that had flooded the Named Lands two days before. To the south, Pylos and Turam also sent soldiers north. If Jin’s geography was correct, the young queen would reach the Palace later today. The other armies would be days behind, though, slowed by the harsh weather.

She vaguely recalled that Rudolfo had kept a small contingent of Gypsy Scouts at the walled mountain fortress until the work had been taken up by a handful of surviving Gray Guard just before winter fell upon them.

At the time, it had been sound strategy: The Foresters had their hands full at home and the Gray Guard were capable. No one could have foreseen this.

Her eyes moved now to Rudolfo’s message, and she read it again quickly. Beneath the casual wording of a personal message to her lay the coded script of a competent though worried general. Bring Aedric and party back, the note said. Send him west with the Wandering Army to honor our kin-claves.

But here she was faced with a hard choice, she realized. Rudolfo did not know about Neb and Isaak. And as highly as she thought of the boy-and having heard somewhat of his quiet romance with Winters the Marsh Queen-she knew that were it simply the boy, her decision would not be so hard.

Jin Li Tam had watched her father sacrifice the children he loved for what he considered to be a higher gain. She could sacrifice Neb, she knew, though it would break her heart to do so.

It was Isaak she could not give up, and for reasons only she and Rudolfo were privy to. In her early days with the Gypsy King, on the night they had fled the Summer Papal Palace and Resolute’s guards, Isaak had told her that he still retained Xhum Y’Zir’s spell, buried within his memory scrolls.

It meant that the most dangerous weapon in the world was fleeing for unknown reasons across the Wastes. And she could not abide that.

She looked away from the messages and rubbed her eyes. “How did you fare during the war?”

“My company took three Entrolusian battalions and two companies of Pylosian rangers,” he said. She looked to the scarf of rank, knotted around his left shoulder with multicolor threads woven in to signify battlefield accomplishments. She noted the pride in his voice.

Now a frank question for frank times, she thought. She met his eyes with her own. “Will you lead the Wandering Army under my direction or will that be. challenging for you?”

He paled, and she saw the sudden discomfort on his face. “Shouldn’t First Captain Aedric-”

“Aedric,” she said, “has other work to do.” Outside the room, she heard the movement of servants as the Seventh Forest Manor woke up and came to life. “When we’re finished here, send the birder in. I’ll send word to both Aedric and Rudolfo.”

At the name of his lord and general, she saw resolve take root in his jawline and his eyes. “I am honored to serve my queen.”

She nodded. “Good.” She paused a moment, trying out the next words in her head before speaking them. When she spoke them, they were solemn and clear: “Rally the Wandering Army to the Western Steppes. We ride for the Marshlands in two days’ time.”

“It will take four to reach their southern reaches. Seven to reach the Palace if we push hard.”

We won’t be going to the palace, she thought but did not tell him. “Yes,” she said.

Already, her mind composed the messages she would write and code. One to Winters to keep her army north. Another to Pylos and Turam to keep their armies south. Another to Aedric that he should find Isaak and Neb at all costs.

And last, a message to Rudolfo to let him know that Second Captain Philemus would lead the Wandering Army west, as Aedric was delayed in the Churning Wastes.

She saw no need to tell him that she intended to take their son and accompany his army with Lynnae and the River Woman in tow. It would add needless worry to him at a time when he needed his wits about him.

She forced her attention back to the present moment.

Jin Li Tam stood, and her mind wandered to the knives in Rudolfo’s desk drawer. I will take them with me.

She inclined her head to Philemus, and he returned the bow. She thought carefully about her next words and what they might mean for the tenuous bonds of kin-clave that loosely held the Named Lands together during this time of disconnection. There had been no open hostilities between the Gypsies and the other nations since Resolute’s so-called suicide. But with the assassinations, the targeting of refugee caravans and now this attack on the Summer Papal Palace, it was obvious that they were at war with someone.

The pattern was too perfect, and the strategy was better crafted than even her father could conceive.

She looked to the officer, and there was authority in her voice when she spoke. “Magick the Scouts,” she said. “Send two companies immediately to Queen Winteria’s aid. Send a company to the Keeper’s Gate with supplies for an extended search.”

“Understood, Lady Tam.” He bowed again and she returned the gesture.

After he left, Jin Li Tam opened the drawer to the desk and lifted out the old set of scout knives she’d been dancing with of late. Setting the belt aside but with within eyeshot, she took up the needle and started crafting her messages.

She took the longest with Rudolfo’s, and she was surprised at how badly she did not want to deceive him.

But more surprising than that, she realized, was how badly she did not want to disappoint him.

Still, despite her new life, she was the forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam, and she was once more doing what she’d been made for.

Calling loudly for the servants, Jin Li Tam scooped up her knife belt and stormed into the corridor. Strategies of war and statecraft played out behind her eyes, and her stride was deliberate and brisk.

As much as she felt fear now buried deep within her, she felt something else as well. It shamed her to name it, because she knew how wrong it was to feel this while taking an action that put her son so blatantly at risk. She shuddered at it, but still she felt it.

It was exhilaration.