“No plan is beyond dreading the sound of a match being struck.”

– Dread Emperor Reprobate the First

“You could change,” Hakram gently suggested, “into something that’s not still smoking.”

I patted at my cloak absent-mindedly, irritated that even after three rounds of that there still seemed to be smoke wafting up somehow. My face was caked in dust and soot, so Adjutant was being fairly light-handed by just talking about clothes, but to the Hells with it. Who was I trying to impress on the other side, by not arriving dressed like a grimy goblin and smelling of dark sorceries? That lot had already declared me Arch-heretic of the East, the only way to go was up. A sharp whistle had Zombie trotting to my side instead a spoken answer and Hakram sighed.

“I take it you won’t be washing either,” the orc said.

“Got it in one,” I cheerfully replied. “Now, we’re just waiting on-”

Leaning against my staff, I pushed myself atop my docilely waiting mount. I settled comfortably onto the saddle, the length of ebony in my hand spinning gracefully the once before I brought it to rest against her neck.

“- a message,” I finished. “After that we’ll be going to have a nice polite chat with people who may or may not want to murder us.”

“Is Vivienne coming along?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Not for this, considering what it might come to,” I said. “And even with you I’m hesitating.”

I glanced at his latest mislaid limb.

“You still any good in a fight, Adjutant?” I asked, tone serious.

He’d known me long enough not to be offended by a question most orcs would have drawn steel over, knowing it was genuine.

“I only need one hand for an axe,” Hakram simply replied.

I nodded in acknowledgement, and neither of us saw any need to belabour the subject any further. In the same way that he’d trusted I asked my question without derision, I would trust him not to be letting pride do the talking when he’d answered it. Dusk was mere moments away, but even in that spreading gloom the winged silhouettes of the Sisters were blots of deeper darkness. It would have been convenient to use them as messengers, but I’d not even bothered to ask – Komena might be somewhat amused by the insolence of it, but Andronike certainly would not. I got cawed at quite enough already without trying to use goddesses as carrier pigeons. The word I’d been waiting on came back on foot, in the shape of Lord Ivah. It knelt before my horse, head rising only at my silent inquisitive glance.

“It was arranged, Losara Queen,” the drow said. “The order was received.”

“Good,” I said. “On your feet, Ivah, and back to the sigil. We might have a long night ahead of us.”

“One can only hope, First Under the Night,” the Lord of Silent Steps smiled.

It heeded the dismissal without tarrying any further, leaving no footstep and making no sound as it vanished into the depths of the camp. Adjutant had visibly been busying himself tying two bundles to the sides of my mount, but it would have been a mistake to believe that meant he’d not been closely paying attention to everything taking place by him.

“Drow are hard to read,” Hakram said. “But this one seems bound more tightly to you than the others.”

“It was first among my Peerage, in trust if not necessarily in might,” I said. “The distinction remains even past the death of the titles they bore.”

“Loyal?” the orc asked me, head cocking to the side.

“To me?” I smiled. “More than some of its fellows are comfortable with, I think. But their true loyalty goes to something I merely stand for. Best not to forget that, when making demands of them.”

“And what demands will be made of them tonight?” he asked.

I hummed.

“The order I sent was a contingency,” I said. “Best you don’t know of it for deniability’s sake. But if the Saint of Swords is there, Adjutant, I’ll be making a play.”

“For?”

“The thing they have that I most want,” I said.

I could see in the tightening of his brow that Hakram was forcing himself not to ask more questions even as we made out of the camp. He wouldn’t be pressing more over the scheme hanging in wait, so odds were he was simply still curious about the drow. It had a fond smile quirking my lips, though I hid it away. Akua had taken to the culture of the Firstborn only insofar as it involved the levers of power and other exploitable angles, Indrani had learned what pertained to her own interests and little else. Hakram, though, was fascinated by drow culture in a manner that went well beyond the immediately useful or relevant aspects of it. It was odd seeing them through that fresh set of eyes, having them taken in as strange and exotic when they were neither to me. I’d indulge him for an hour or two later, though if he intended to make a treatise on the subject I was definitely letting him pick at Ivah’s brains instead. I’d refused the legionary escort Juniper had offered when I’d told her I would be headed for talks with the Pilgrim and his latest round of minions, along with Vivienne’s suggestion of an honour guard of knights. They both had their instructions in case this ended with someone killing me, which I considered to be unlikely but would be arrogant to be presume impossible.

It was not a long walk, to where our enemies were waiting for us, and it was opens ground every step of the way.

The pavilion was held up by two poles, thick canvas painted green and gold descending from there in a roughly rectangular shape. The entrance, flanked as it was by truce banners, had been tied open just enough to reveal four silhouettes within without letting out the heat from inside. All of them seated at a table, with raised braziers providing warmth in the waning light of day. Hakram and I did not hurry, allowing the shadows to lengthen with our approach. Crusted with dust and ash, I must have looked to have been tarred to better match the dark: the sight of me, at least, brought a sliver of almost indulgent amusement from the goddesses still circling above. Sve Noc descended on dark wings twofold in the exact moment day turned to night, and they claimed my shoulders as perch without a word. We were close enough to the pavilion I could make out the faces of most within. Rozala Malanza, face drawn and tired after the day’s battle but no less grimly cast for it. The Grey Pilgrim himself was no surprise, for he would have been drawn to a day like this sure as flies to fresh corpses.

The sight that had my pulse quickening, however, was the Saint of Swords: Laurence de Montfort’s crooked frame and wrinkled face were unmistakeable. Well, it seemed I was going to be playing with fire after all. The fourth and last was a man looking to be in his early forties I knew not, though I could hazard a guess. He was built like an orc, tall and broad and thickly muscled. Add to that the deep tan and the good chance he was the commander of the Levantine part of the army, and odds were this was the Lord of Alava. One of the Champion’s Blood, as they were called, though it was my understanding that the heroine who’d killed Captain was not kin to the actual blood descendants of that ancient hero. The two mortal rulers were fresh additions, not in attendance when I’d gotten my first report of this tent being raised. The Pilgrim must have sent for them before I even departed the camp with Adjutant. The hero was laying it on thick, I decided with a frown. That particular point had already been made when he first had the pavilion put up. This reeked of overcompensation to me, and that was not something I’d usually associate with an old hand like Tariq. Regardless, I had no intention of being pulled into his rhythm.

“Here,” I suddenly said.

Zombie stride came to a sudden stop maybe forty feet away from the pavilion, and I stroked her mane affectionately even as Hakram followed suit. With a hard shove I planted my staff in the snow, and Adjutant mirrored the gesture with the truce banner he’d been marching under. Without a word it was made clear to the other side I would not be humouring them with a single step further. Komena cawed approvingly from my shoulder, never one to pass the occasion to stick it to someone even through ceremony. It was almost amusing watching the ripple of dismay that passed through the enemy when they realized that they’d have to leave their nice warm tent to come speak with the Black Queen. A small gesture, perhaps, but so had been their own intention in making me crawl to their table and domain before speaking to them. I intended to make it clear from the beginning, which side it was between us that came closest to being considered the supplicant. They filed out one by one, and I had to suppress a grin when I saw the Saint had gotten stuck with the duty of carrying out a brazier. Seeing the woman who might just be the most dangerous killer in the service Heavens being used for manual labour warmed the petty cockles of my heart. The Grey Pilgrim took the lead, those simples grey robes that should prove no match for the cold all he’d bothered to wear. Malanza and the Levantine let him stand in front, an implicit endorsement of his primacy, while the Saint put down the brazier near them with ill-grace.

“Queen Catherine,” the Pilgrim said, “we-”

The touch was light as a feather, for the first fraction of a moment. People often said they could feel a weight to the gaze of others, when it was on them, a sort of sense for the attention – and this was the same, in a way. The crow-goddesses on my shoulders stirred, and the touch was torn through by their will like a hand through cobwebs. It came back, a little stronger, and from a myriad angles. Komena’s wings spread in irritation: the night shivered around us, and only then did the attention withdraw.

“Tariq,” I interrupted in Chantant, tone harsh. “If you don’t tell your owners to keep their grubby little fingers to themselves, I might just decide to take offence to their behaviour.”

Like tossing a stone in a pond, I got to see the ripples from that. Princess Rozala was surprised, and a little confused. The Levantine looked… angry enough to draw steel, but hiding it much better than I would have guessed. Good ol’ Laurence had a hand on her sword, ornery cutthroat that she was. It was for the best, I mused, that the scheme I had in mind required me to get under the skin of most these people.

“Pardon?” the Grey Pilgrim said, what looked like genuine surprise on his face.

Andronike cawed on my right shoulder, though the true meaning she simply wove into my mind as a thought.

“Mercy, huh,” I said. “That’d be the Ophanim, if I remember my theology right.”

I leaned forward, peering at the Grey Pilgrim and not.

“Are you listening through him, you meddlesome old things?” I asked. “Try that again and I swear I’ll take a few feathers for my cloak.”

Hakram, bless his soul, had always been quick to follow through on my plays.

“This could be taken as an assault under truce banner,” the orc gravelled. “What exactly is your meaning in arranging this, Princess Malanza?”

The Princess of Aequitan’s face betrayed irritation, before she mastered it and it became a pleasantly smiling mask.

“This is a misunderstanding, Lord Adjutant,” she said.

“They’re lying,” the Saint of Swords said. “It wasn’t an attack, only gazing.”

Years of rubbing elbows with Praesi ensured the flash of satisfaction I felt never made it to my face. Laurence was always going to be the weak point, here: she was powerful, unused to having to measure her words and hated me to the bone. Like a lot of people who’d been the strongest in their surroundings for years on years, she’d not had to really answer to anyone for too long. That led to sloppy habits.

“So by your own admission the Choir of Mercy attempted to look into my mind,” I coldly said.

Rozala’s face tightened almost imperceptibly. She might not have a sense for stories, this once, but she could recognize a diplomatic blunder when she heard one.

“The Saint of Swords does not speak for us,” the princess said. “As I said, Black Queen, this is a misunderstanding. Let us put it behind us and-”

Suddenly, Andronike began laughing in the back of my mind. A heartbeat later I heard Tariq flinch, and from the crow-goddesses I felt only vicious satisfaction.

“Gods, child, what have you done to yourself?” the Grey Pilgrim said. “Those things on your shoulder… those are no crows. How many times can you sell your soul?”

Had he tried to gaze at them using an aspect? I almost pitied him if he had. The foundations of apotheosis for these two had been millennia of hateful murder, and the mortar had been Winter freely given – look at one of those raw would have been painful, but the two? Still, I ignored him and kept my eyes on Malanza instead. She was the angle I needed to exploit right now. The Levantine, who’d still not been introduced, was watching this unfold with wary eyes but not apparent inclination to step in.

“Your delegation has now assaulted me, accused me of lying over said assault and is now trying to lecture me like a misbehaving child,” I mildly said. “Explain to me, Rozala Malanza, why I should not simply leave.”

“Perhaps a recess is in order,” the Levantine said, speaking up for the first time. “An hour, setting terms through intermediaries to avoid this strife.”

His tone was calm, and his Chantant only lightly accented. What he was suggesting had a decent chance of succeeding, which was why I couldn’t allow it to happen. This needed to have a very specific shape to it, if I didn’t want it to end with a sword running through my guts.

“There has been no evidence that your side is willing to negotiate in good faith,” Hakram said, tone just as calm. “A recess would change nothing. It is an explanation that is required.”

“I am Yannu Marave, Lord of Alava and first among the Champion’s Blood,” the Levantine said. “I give my word that no assault was meant, to the best of my knowledge.”

Cool-headed, I thought. That was unfortunate. Why couldn’t I have gotten your average brash Dominion swordarm in attendance instead? Hells, the boy in Sarcella had been from a legacy of mages and he’d been nowhere this even-keeled.

“Perhaps the two of you had diplomatic intentions,” I conceded, adjusting the angle of the thrust. “If that’s the case, we may proceed without their presence. It has certainly been nothing but a distraction so far.”

The earlier anger returned to his eyes. There we go, I thought.

“The Peregrine will always have a voice in the councils of Levant,” Lord Yannu replied, tone grown cool.

Now we were getting somewhere. He’d taken a position, I could take offence to it rightfully and walk away from this without having been ‘the villain breaking negotiations on purpose’, which was rarely a situation that ended well for said villain.

“Foundling, this is getting out of hand,” Princess Rozala said, with forced calm. “As Lord Yannu suggested, a recess would be best.”

“She’s breaking this down on purpose,” the Saint said, and spat to the side. “The Enemy always schemes, Malanza, you should have learned that by now.”

And it was true, I thought, but by saying it she’d given me exactly what I needed.

“That’s quite enough,” I said, allowing anger to seep into my voice. “We’re done here. If neither you nor the Pilgrim can keep your hound on a tighter leash, Malanza, we’ll settle this on the field.”

Now, there was the gambit. But I’d been fairly sure the moving parts would come together just right. With the Sisters disallowing whatever it was that allowed the Pilgrim to look into people, he should be on the backfoot. Experience, for once, would work against him: when you used a tool for several decades, suddenly losing it required an adjustment. Even the finest swordman in Creation would need time to adapt after being forced in his first fistfight in sixty years. Time which I’d been careful not to give the Pilgrim, so to speak. Now, Malanza had to answer for two heroes neither of which she had any real authority over, and she was not great diplomat in the first place. That I’d be able to work around her when the chaos set in was a given. The only unknown had been the Lord Yannu, but even though he’d given me trouble most of Levant came with a usable handle: the Grey Pilgrim himself. Even the implication he was to be dismissed had been enough to harden the Levantine’s position. Now, I had passable reason to leave in a huff. And I’d repeatedly slighted the Saint this whole time, when odds were she’d be opposed to this kind of conference in the first place. I was leaving with the promise of waging a battle that would be dangerous for her side, in her eyes likely succeeding at whatever scheme I’d been intent on. So, after I took my reins in hand and began to tug at them to turn Zombie around, I prepared to find out whether my gambit was going to pay off.

A flicker of movement from Saint, and just like that I had them.

“Laurence,” the Pilgrim yelled, “don’t-”

I wouldn’t be able to avoid that, I thought even as steps almost faster than I could follow had the Saint of Swords standing in front of Zombie and swinging her blade at my throat. But then I’d known I wouldn’t be able to, and taken precautions well in advance. As the steel made it a bare inch from my throat, ruffling Komena’s feathers lightly as it passed, Laurence de Montfort was decked in the face.

She went tumbling across the snow, spewing out blood and even a tooth, while Rumena the Tomb-Maker followed.

The Grey Pilgrim’s hands blazed with light, but a heartbeat later I had my staff in hand and pointed at him.

“You make a move, Tariq, and I’ll drop you,” I said, tone perfectly calm.

He hesitated, even as the two mortals on his side reached for their blades in delayed reaction to this unholy mess, and that was quite enough for General Rumena to see my will done. The Saint of Swords landed on her feet, but the ground beneath her turned into boiling shadow and her leap up as she raised her sword once more had her land in the grasp of the old drow. Who closed its fingers around her throat, and squeezed lightly once. Her hand went down at the clear signal that the drow could have killed her but would refrain if she ceased moving. In a fair fight, I suspected the Saint would kill it after some trouble. In an ambush, as I’d arranged in a sense, it might be a little more even. But my weapon here wasn’t Rumena’s own might, so much as the fact that the Saint of Swords was a heroine who’d just attacked someone leaving peaceful negotiations held under truce banner. There wasn’t a single fucking story that would get her out of this, so long as I was careful.

“I’ve had better fights from jawor,” the Tomb-Maker scathingly assessed in Chantant. “This cattle is blind and easily provoked, Losara Queen. How has it survived so long in the Burning Lands?”

I couldn’t prove that Rumena had worked on its mastery of Chantant purely to be able to slag its opponents verbally, but I had very deep suspicions.

“Catherine,” the Grey Pilgrim said. “You cannot-”

“Your Majesty,” I idly corrected. “I am going to ask you questions now, Pilgrim, and if you don’t answer them quickly and truthfully then General Rumena will execute the attempted murderer of the Queen of Callow.”

“Queen Catherine,” Princess Rozala tried, but she wasn’t part of this right now and so I simply ignored her.

“Do you have Amadeus of the Green Stretch as a prisoner?” I asked the Pilgrim.

“Yes,” Tariq said.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“At camp, under restraints.”

“Is he alive and unharmed?

“Yes,” Tariq said.

“Is he in his right mind?” I pressed.

“As far as I know,” the Pilgrim said.

“Good,” I smiled. “Fetch him, right now. I’ll trade him for your murderous little friend.”

The Grey Pilgrim remained silent for a long moment.

“Laurence is one of the few living heroes who might be capable of slaying the Dead King,” he said. “More than that, of killing him permanently. You could be dooming the continent by killing her.”

I met his eyes and smiled.

“General Rumena,” I said. “Squeeze a little tighter.”

“Merciful Gods, Foundling, this is madness,” Princess Rozala yelled. “You can’t extort us-”

“Your delegation just tried to murder me under truce banner, Malanza,” I snapped. “You should be licking my boots in fucking gratitude that a prisoner is all I’m demanding to let it go.”

“The Carrion Lord torched entire principalities,” the Princess of Aequitan snapped back. “How many thousands of dead innocents are on his head? And you think you can just ask for him back?”

“Black’s the only way Praes doesn’t collapse and take a third of the continent down with it,” I said through gritted teeth. “So take your damned objections and choke on them, Malanza, because he might be a monster but he’s mine and he’s still needed.”

“Don’t do it, Tariq,” the Saint called out. “Let them have me and then slit the bastard’s throat. No truce with the Enemy.”

“Tighter still, Rumena,” I coldly ordered. “Pilgrim, an answer. You won’t wait me into a story that turns this around.”

“If you kill her,” Tariq said, “I’ll kill him.”

“You’ve kept him alive so far for a reason,” I countered without missing a beat. “While I have no pressing reason to keep de Montfort breathing save for this trade. Try again.”

“You are gambling with matters beyond your understanding,” the Pilgrim said, sounding frustrated.

“If even a single one of you had taken any of the deals I offered we wouldn’t be standing here tonight,” I told him without a shred of sympathy. “Instead you get this and you get me. You were warned, Pilgrim. My terms were given, do we have a bargain?”

“He’s killing her,” Pilgrim said, eyes flicking to the Saint.

“Best hurry then,” I harshly replied.

“I only have the body,” the Grey Pilgrim said. “The soul was removed.”

“By who?” I snarled.

He didn’t answer, and that was answer enough. The fucking Saint of Swords.

“Where’s the soul?” I asked.

“I do not know,” the Pilgrim replied, then glanced at the Saint again. “If Laurence dies, Catherine, we have no accord.”

“General Rumena, loosen your grip slightly,” I reluctantly said. “And you must be hard of hearing, Pilgrim – it’s Your Majesty. How can you now know where the soul is?”

“I entrusted it to the Rogue Sorcerer,” Tariq said. “And sent him into hiding.”

“Why?” I hissed.

“So that the Black Knight’s body could be publicly slain while his soul remains usable as leverage,” the Pilgrim said.

“Have the body delivered, then,” I coldly said. “It’ll serve for a start.”

“And Laurence?” the Pilgrim pressed.

I glanced at her, at the naked hatred on her face. Before this she had despised me mostly in principle, I thought, but now? Now it was personal. She’d be after my neck from the moment she was let loose.

“You can have her back, once I have the body,” I finally said.

My eyes turned to the princess and the lord, who looked deeply uncomfortable with what had taken place – as much with the Regicide’s actions as the fact it looked like I was coming out on top, I thought.

“So,” I said. “I suppose we have some time to kill before I get the body. Let’s have us a peace conference, then.”