In the palace’s old library wing, stripped of its books and pressed into service as a war room, Allandra paced the length of the battered table, hands loose at her sides. She’d walked the same path so many times that the runner beneath her boots was threadbare, the pattern worn to a pale, uneven shadow. On the table: three decanters of wine, a battered water ewer, and a scatter of documents, some folded to hide their content, some left open like wounds. The long glass windows glared with the reflection of midmorning; beyond them, the terraces of Myrae glittered with the last shreds of festival, the city unwilling to surrender its gold and green even now, even when the world had shifted beneath their feet.
Daravan sat at one end, back straight, the navy of his uniform sharp as the blade she’d once seen him use to disarm a man without ever rising from his chair. Hagen sprawled at the opposite end, feet braced on an overturned crate, mouth set in a half-smile that never touched his eyes. He toyed with a paperweight, flipping it end over end, the glass sphere catching light and sending fractured little darts across the walls.
Allandra did not sit. She picked up the next report—blue wax, Lyehiran crest barely visible in the wax—and read it, lips moving silently. She did not blink as she read; she barely breathed.
“Still nothing?” said Hagen, not looking up.
“Nothing that matters,” Allandra replied, and tossed the page back to the pile. “There’s a report of unrest near the border, but it’s the same story as last week. Sabotaged crops, two merchant caravans raided, a list of missing persons no different than in any autumn since I was ten.”
Daravan’s hand found the rim of his glass, tapped it once. “There is the matter of the Night Fae agents,” he said. “Increased sightings in the foothills. Three teams, maybe more, crossing the same patch of riverland within the week. They’re not running from us. They’re looking for something.”
“They always look for something,” Hagen interjected, voice dry. “This time, perhaps, it’s each other.”
Allandra turned on her brother. “If you have an actual suggestion, say it. If not, stop performing for the cheap seats.”
He flashed the practiced, effortless smile that had once made the court ladies swoon. “I’m just saying the pattern is obvious. They’ve lost someone, or something, and they’re desperate to retrieve it before we do. Is that not what your little captive down in the dungeons suggested, at length?”
Allandra’s jaw ticked. “She has not suggested anything at length. She’s answered questions with questions, then silence, then the occasional threat. She won’t even confirm her own name, let alone a mission.”
Daravan lifted his eyes to Allandra’s, steady and unblinking. “With respect, Majesty, the only consistent fact is that she’s hiding something. She has the look of Xuiven. She channels magic like one of their trained mages. She bears scars that aren’t ornamental, and her hands are callused in a way that suggests she’s dangerous.”
Allandra let out a breath and dropped into the nearest chair, the motion less a collapse than a calculated withdrawal. She poured a half-inch of wine into her glass, considered it, then left it untouched.
“She’s the best liar I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Or the worst.”
Hagen looked up from the paperweight. “You’re starting to sound admiring.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” Allandra snapped.
Daravan, as always, pressed his advantage with precision. “Regardless. We cannot simply keep her in a cell, not now. The longer she’s here, the more likely it is someone will try to free her, or kill her, or both.”
“She’s not a threat,” said Allandra, but the words rang hollow.
Hagen spun the glass sphere in his hand, then set it down with a snap. “Then dispose of her. Clean, quiet, painless. She’s a war asset, not a child left at your door.”
Allandra’s hands curled tight on the table’s edge. “And what if she’s neither? What if she’s exactly what she says, an orphaned mistake, abandoned by the Xuiven because she wasn’t worth their trouble?”
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“That’s never how it works,” Hagen replied, and his voice lost its banter. “You know that better than anyone.”
The silence after that was long and bright. The glass windows distorted the view, throwing double images of the city onto the surface of the table, a ghost-Myrae floating over the wine stains and ink.
Daravan shifted in his seat, the sound barely audible. “Majesty, forgive me, but your hesitation is noted. The court expects a demonstration of control. The army expects a clear verdict. Every hour she stays alive in our dungeons is a potential weakness, either for your enemies to exploit, or for her to weaponize.”
Allandra did not flinch. “Are you so afraid of a half-starved girl in a cell?”
Daravan’s eyes never left hers. “I am afraid of the precedent.”
Hagen pushed away from the crate, letting his feet land solid on the floor. “We all remember what happened last time. You, most of all.” He said it with a weight that nearly unbalanced the room.
Allandra’s voice cooled. “My husband died because we trusted a Xuiven prisoner who claimed to have defected. My father died because he believed in the sanctity of treaties. I am not so foolish as to let sentiment cloud my judgment, Hagen.”
He lifted his chin, not quite conceding, but something like it. “Then prove it.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, pressing the pads of her fingers into her eyelids until the afterimage of the sun-painted window burned away the memory. When she opened them, her gaze fell to the reports again.
“There’s nothing about her in their missing persons. No ransom note, no demand, not even a rumor of a lost daughter. The only rumor is about a batch of ‘defective’ mages purged from the Xuiven breeding pens. She fits the age range. She fits the scars.”
Daravan was silent, letting her logic spool out.
“She used her magic at the festival,” Allandra continued, “but according to every reliable witness, it was to shield a local girl from being assaulted by a man twice her size. She could have run, she could have killed him. Instead, she simply pushed him away and stood her ground. If that’s a Night Fae mission, it’s the strangest I’ve seen.”
Hagen made a noise, low and skeptical. “Or it’s a plant. A demonstration. They want us to believe in her innocence, so we’ll lower our guard.”
Daravan nodded, slow and deliberate. “Or she’s bait. A way to get someone into the heart of the palace, to observe our security or gather intelligence for the next strike.”
Allandra reached for her glass at last, took a small sip, and set it back down. “You both want her dead.”
“No,” said Hagen. “I want her solved.”
Allandra let out a sound, somewhere between a laugh and a growl. “I’ve read all your little war manuals, brother. There’s always a page for ‘solve it with a knife’.”
He leaned in, elbows on knees. “There’s also a page for ‘don’t let the enemy’s sympathy become your weakness.’”
She stood again, the movement sharp. “If we kill her, and she’s innocent, it proves the Xuiven right: we are monsters who execute women for the crime of surviving.”
Hagen’s face went blank. “And if we let her live, and she kills us all in our beds?”
Daravan folded his hands, patient. “If you have a plan, Majesty, now is the time to say it. Otherwise, let me handle her.”
Allandra looked down at the pile of documents, at the half-drawn maps and agent logs and the lists of the dead. She pinched the bridge of her nose, then turned away from the table, striding to the windows. The city’s noise drifted up: laughter, song, the distant toll of a ship’s bell. The sun was almost at its peak.
“She’s afraid of the dark,” Allandra said, quietly.
Hagen snorted. “So? The Night Fae raise their children to swim in it. She’s playing for pity.”
“No,” Allandra replied, voice strange and distant. “It’s real. She panicked. I left a light for her, she fell asleep only once the sun-orb was set in the cell. She would rather endure pain than be left alone in shadow.”
Hagen’s expression turned brittle. “Or she’s manipulating you, as she’s been trained.”
Allandra turned, resting her palms against the cold glass. “You’re right. It’s probably a lie. Everything is, in the end. But I need to know if I’m about to murder a woman for the sins of her bloodline. And I would prefer not to.”
Daravan’s fingers tapped the table. “If she’s innocent, she’d have confessed by now. Even the Xuiven break after three days.”
“She’s not Xuiven,” said Allandra, softly. “She’s something else.”
Hagen’s mouth twisted. “If she is, you’d best find out before the rest of the court does.”
For the first time, Daravan’s mask slipped. “If you permit, Majesty, I could try different methods. Less kind than yours.”
Allandra hesitated, then nodded. “But nothing permanent. I want her alive, and I want her answers.”
Daravan inclined his head, accepting the order.
Hagen stood, dusting the front of his trousers. “If it goes wrong, and the city finds out, it’s your legacy at stake, not mine.”
She met his eyes, letting her own exhaustion show. “That’s always been the way of things, Hagen.”
He almost smiled, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “We do what we must for the realm, Allandra.”
She did not answer. She stood at the window, staring down at the shining city, and wondered how many more times she could choose to let the sun in before the darkness swallowed them all.
Daravan gathered the documents, stacking them with military neatness. “You’ll be informed of the result, Majesty.”
Allandra nodded, eyes still on the window.
When she finally turned back, the room was empty. She poured a new glass of wine, this time draining it in a single, unceremonious gulp. Then she walked out, her steps slow and heavy, and made her way to the under-palace, where the cold stone waited, and so did the girl who refused to break.