Caught in the warm fog that just preceded bedtime, Miliana sat and sipped her tea. Comforted by the shelter of oaken planks, Lorenzo emerged to lean across the edges of his tub. He accepted Miliana's gift of tea, propped himself up on his elbows, and fondly gazed at her through a haze of steam.

"You seem quiet."

"I feel quiet." Miliana, damp and glowing from her own time in her bath, looked up at Lorenzo and creased a sweetly anxious brow.

"Lorenzo… am I too foul-tempered?"

Her companion fumbled a dripping hand across the tub; Miliana caught the fingers in her own and gave a squeeze. Lorenzo reached across to push a damp curl back from Miliana's face.

"No. I'd say that you're just foul-tempered enough."

"I suppose so." Miliana flexed her fingers in Lorenzo's grasp. "It's just that-back home-I've evaded, snarled, and schemed. But until you came along, no one's ever really been worth arguing with before."

From the pocket of her robe, Miliana pulled a borrowed coin-a half-ducat piece from Sumbria. Her father's face had been stamped across the electrum disk-a face that still showed its habitually cold stare.

Miliana held the coin before the mask of her spectacles.

"I try to think of all those funny little plazas-those fountains and streets we both walked through-as they were. Not how they must be now, all broken down by Svarezi's men.

"I like your home, Lorenzo. I don't want what happened to Sumbria to happen here."

"We'll fight it." Lorenzo looked quietly at Miliana's wistful face. "We'll win. Hey, you're a real princess, remember?"

For an answer, Miliana shifted the coin and stared into her father's face.

"He's really dead, isn't he." The girl looked softly at the portrait with its blank, unseeing eyes. "I loved that city, and now it's gone.

"And do you know what he'd have expected me to do about it?"

"What?"

"Absolutely nothing. The man scarcely knew I was alive."

Miliana's fist closed over the coin and clenched, slowly squeezing it until her knuckles turned white.

"We'll show him…"

Lorenzo gripped Miliana's free hand, changing her bitterness into a wan little smile.

"Yes. We'll show him."

They kissed softly, lips touching as each wound fingers into the other's hair. Resting forehead to forehead, they clung together in silence, companionship, and steam.

Finally, the girl rose, kissed Lorenzo's fingers, and wandered to the door.

She halted and looked back at him, her face soft and fond behind the panels of her spectacles.

"Argue with you tomorrow?"

Lorenzo smiled.

"Tomorrow."

Moving out into the hall, Miliana closed the door behind her and wandered quietly into her borrowed bedroom. A candle burned warm and yellow beside the bed, while Tekoriikii sat in a nest of straw happily reading the pages of a picture book. Miliana stroked his crest fondly as she passed, then sank onto the bed.

She lay curled on her side, staring at the little disk of gray metal in her palm. The warm scent of straw and bird spread its spell across the bedroom, and Miliana's coin hung heavy in her hand.

Minutes later, it slipped onto the covers, off the bed, and rolled across the wood floor. Craning his neck up across the bed, Tekoriikii watched his friend for a long, quiet while, then softly drew the blankets up across her freckled arms.

The girl lay calm and quiet. Tekoriikii gently snuffed the candle, tucked his head beneath one wing, and sank into a contented world of sleep.

Winter on the shores of the Akanamere came in hard and strong. For the tiny city-state of Zutria, it was a welcome time of unprecedented harvest. For days on end, wild storms and winds would lash against the coast; the fishing fleets would shelter in the city's fine stone harbor while the crews kept the cold at bay with fried fish and hot spiced ale.

As the wind dropped-as it always did after three or four full days of violent blow-the city folk, farmers, and fishermen spread out from Zutria's walls. In the predictable calms, the bait fish swarmed in dense clouds along the shore, bringing a fabulous bounty that was netted in by wading men. Their wives and children worked the rocky beaches, raking tons of wrack into reeking piles to be carted off as fertilizer for the city fields. Zutria-poor, independent, and proud-made the most of every passing moment of the year.

And every year, just before the high midwinter's feast, the storms would hammer hard along the bay. Spectacular sheets of spray flung high across the city walls, driving sentries into shelter and sending everyone indoors.

As the night wore on, the wild winds dropped away. Fishermen gathered in each other's houses, waiting for the first watery light of dawn; as the horizon lit with ghost-gray fingers, the city emptied itself out through the gates and wandered merrily down to the shore.

In the predawn light, the freshwater sea became one vast, shimmering expanse of black. Here and there a wave cap glittered, caught by the sunlight leaking eastward across the headlands far beyond. The fishermen scanned the lightless surface, then spread out to begin the day's affairs.

There were nets to work and catches to be made. Friendly nixies, lured up from their cool green homes far below the lake, would drive away the greedy pike in return for dried beef and squeeze bulbs filled with wine. Men blew the horns to summon up their allies from below as the first nets were walked, hissing, slowly out into the waves.

The nets moved onward, then faltered as their handlers stared out across the lake.

Lit pink by the winter sun, tiny shapes lined the water out beside the headlands; low, sleek hulls which flickered in and out of sight behind the restless swells.

Zutria's citizens gathered on the beach to stare, all shading eyes against the sudden flash of dawn as daylight flooded out across the Akanamere.

The tiny slivers arrowed fast across the bay, and finally the shapes stood out sharp and clear. They were battle galleys; fast-rowed warships flying a strange new banner of purest black.

From Zutria's walls came the sound of trumpets, bells, and drums. Windlasses creaked as a boom made of chained logs and metal spines was raised up to block the harbor entrance. With the city safe behind its walls, and her port protected by engines, spells, and booms, Zutria stood immune from any mischief the attacking ships might do. The fisherfolk gathered on the shores to watch the fun, wondering what the invading fleet would do to vent its rage.

The fleet of galleys might have belonged to Sumbria, the nearest city down the coast, were it not for their black flags and clear hostility. The lean little shapes formed a swarm about a giant barge that ponderously beat into the bay. With its huge oars rippling like a water insect's limbs, the barge settled itself before Zutria's harbor mouth, just out of ballista range.

The barge backed water, the world fell into an expectant hush-and suddenly the air flickered to a blinding bolt of light.

A shaft of searing heat stabbed out from the barge. The seawall exploded like a bomb, slumping stones into the water with a hiss of scalding steam. The crash of breaking masonry sent shock waves through the air, while violet afterimages hung like wraiths before the eyes of shocked defenders.

The giant barge shifted; black figures swarmed across an armored box mounted at the bow, and the deadly light beam stabbed across the bay once more. It raked across the harbor guard towers, cutting through stonework in a searing blast of noise. Seconds later, Zutria stood open and exposed.

With insolent ease, the light beam scored across the waves, boiling water and sending up titanic gouts of steam. It snipped the boom chains clean in two like a princess opening new public baths with a pair of golden shears, and the black galleys surged forward in a triumphant, screaming wave.