As he left the hunting lodge and made for the nearby barracks, Lysias tried to look at the sky and find something beautiful in the crisp winter day. It had rained, melting the last night’s snow quickly, and the morning smelled like pine needles and loam.

Maybe I am too old for this work now. He hadn’t felt that way before Windwir, and especially before leading those guards into Sethbert’s bedchambers to arrest the madman. He’d felt it then, the weariness creeping up on him; he had not equated it with age. But the capstone was when his own daughter took up with a Secessionist librarian, fleeing with him to Parmona when that city threw down its governor and his brigades. That was the day he first felt old. And the look in her eye that last time he saw her, so much like her mother, sparked another feeling within him that he desperately wished to misplace. But these days, he carried it around with him and it weighed him down; he could not defeat it despite the strategy and forces he mustered.

I have helped to make this happen.

Pushing back that sudden stab of guilt, General Lysias grabbed hold of what had always sustained him in times past.

He was, after all, first and foremost a man of duty.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo stood in his dressing room and let that moment of silence and stillness wash him. He’d spent much of the day dispatching birds and discussing his investigation strategy with Captain Philemus. Sometime in the night or early morning they expected return birds as they probed the Forest Gypsy’s slight but effective network of spies and informants elsewhere in the Named Lands. He anticipated their news, but there were other birds coming-birds that he did not look forward to once Turam’s ailing king learned of his only heir’s demise.

Between the birds and Philemus, he’d also managed to sit long enough to hear the Physician’s report on his autopsy of the one Marsher already cooling in the ice house. It was perplexing news.

“I’ve seen nothing like it,” the Physician told him, and the River Woman next to him nodded her agreement. “His heart gave out, along with the rest of his organs.”

Rudolfo had made the first suggestion that came to mind. “Poison, then?”

But the Physician shook his head. “I think it was the blood magicks.”

Hours later, the puzzle stayed with him and he sighed, looking to the dressing room’s one small window to gauge the day’s remains. It would be dark soon, and he still needed to sit with Winters, discuss his strategy and hear her thoughts before she left tomorrow with her people. He did not envy the path ahead of her.

If these assassins were truly Marshers, she not only had trouble within her borders but would soon have it without. Turam would not take well to the death of their future king, despite the internal troubles they had themselves.

And Rudolfo’s kin-clave with the Marshers would need to be honored, pulling the Ninefold Forest Houses into a political situation that was tenuous at best.

But before all of that, there was another matter to attend to.

He went to his father’s wardrobe, the one where he’d kept those few personal belongings of his parents that meant something to him. His father’s sword hung there, along with the emerald-encrusted scabbard. His mother’s hunting bow hung near it. On the shelves within stood a scattering of their favorite books-some that they had read to Rudolfo and Isaak when they were young boys. And behind those books lay the box.

He stretched up on tiptoes, reaching over those bound volumes, to find it. Then he pulled it down and opened it.

He’d not looked in the box for twenty years at least, though he’d known for nearly a year that he would need to. For the briefest of times, he’d looked forward to this. Then, that day at Vlad Li Tam’s bonfire had burned that hope away, turning it into something different.

Until the boy arrived.

Surprised at the trembling of his hands, Rudolfo reached into the box and lifted out a smaller box. Within it lay the two simple bands of silver that his mother and father had exchanged upon the day of his birth, even as the Gypsy Kings and Queens before them had done. Slipping the smaller box into his pocket, he carefully closed and replaced the larger back in its proper place.

As he left the dressing room, he thought about what came next.

He paused in the large bath chamber that separated his suite of rooms from those of Jin Li Tam. He splashed his face in water touched with lilac oil, pausing to take in his hollow eyes in the small mirror.

It wasn’t that he did not love Jin Li Tam, he thought, though it was a different love than what it might have been. It was a love having more to do with trust and effectiveness than passion or romance. Though there were times, as during her labor, where those feelings of intense longing would take him and he would find joy in her form, in her way with words, in the brightness of her eyes.

But those feelings, he reasoned, were not required. And if anything, they were not to be counted upon when it came to matters of state or duty. Still, he held hope that one day, what had started between them with the fire of a sunset would rekindle.

He went to the door on the other side of the bath chamber, the one that led to her room. He knocked lightly, and when she bid him enter, he pushed aside his introspection.

Jin Li Tam was not alone with Jakob-but he had not really expected her to be. A young woman who looked ill at ease was there with the River Woman, and the three of them were gathered around Jakob. He closed the door behind him.

As he approached, a look passed between Jin Li Tam and the River Woman. He’d seen the look before-from the River Woman, admonition and from Jin Li Tam, resolution.

Jin Li Tam looked to him now, and he watched her hands move, low and to her side. I have a difficult matter to discuss with you.

Soon, he replied. He forced a smile. “How is our son this evening?”

“As well as can be expected,” the River Woman said. The old woman looked tired, but that did not surprise Rudolfo-she’d spent the last three days at the manor, grabbing a few hours of sleep where she could but working night and day to care for the infant.

Jin Li Tam tried to return Rudolfo’s smile, then turned to the young woman. “Lynnae,” she said, “I would like to introduce you to Lord Rudolfo.” She looked to Rudolfo again. “I’ve taken the liberty of securing Lynnae’s help with our child. I hope that is acceptable.”

Odd, he thought, that she would seek a stranger with a house of servants at her disposal.

Rudolfo studied the girl. She was young, her dark, curly hair spilling out from beneath a scarf, offsetting her olive skin. Her clothing was simple fare, though it was taking on a threadbare quality from constant use; she shifted uncomfortably on her feet. She was pretty, he noted, but haunted by grief and too little sleep. Like the rest of us, he observed.

He stepped forward with a flourish and inclined his head toward her. “Lady Lynnae,” he said. “If Lady Tam requires your assistance, then my House is at your beckoning.”

She blushed and curtsied. “Thank you, Lord. You have already been a gracious host to us.”

Entrolusian by her accent, he thought, with a touch of the Southern Coasts. Most likely a refugee from the Delta, then. He watched her leave, and after another glance between the remaining two women, he watched the River Woman leave as well. Suddenly, for the first time since the night of the birth, Rudolfo and Jin Li Tam were alone with their baby.

Jin Li Tam patted the bedcovers beside her. “Come and hold your son, Rudolfo.”

Come and hold your son. The words stirred something inside of him to life again, like that night she had labored for the baby’s delivery. He went to the bed and sat next to her, receiving the bundle that stirred slightly in his unexpected arms. The skin color was more pallid than gray now, but the hollow eyes were the same. Rudolfo looked up. “Do you know what ails him yet?”