The course of history hinged on the choice of Sublime V's successor.

The uprising in Castreresone lasted one evening and night and focused entirely on the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.

In a whisper next morning the Captain-General confided to his spy chief, "I'm not going to miss any of those villains."

"But Morcant Farfog's murder…"

"Will cause a lot of trouble. How much depends on our next Patriarch."

Hagan Brokke reclaimed his honor in a series of fierce little engagements that stripped Queen Isabeth and Duke Tormond of their mercenary strength. His light cavalry harassed Isabeth's Direcians continuously, deliberately targeting one knight or noble at a time. Because they were who they were, each death or capture would have a significant impact in Direcia.

The Queen of Navaya withdrew to the shadow of her brother's capital city.

From elation about events in the west Piper Hecht fell into a depression over news from the east. Count Raymone Garete had resumed his stubborn defiance, with a more punishing daily cost now that Bronte Doneto had gone. Piper Hecht reviewed the whys and wherefores. What strange, small change had reanimated the Count's stubborn insolence?

"Those prisoners Brokke brought in," Titus Consent said. "Some got away, probably with help, while we were running in circles because of Farfog's murder."

Hecht scowled. He grumbled a question about who he needed to have stoned or drowned.

"That would be a waste of time and emotion. Focus on those who didn't get away. Bernardin Amberchelle, for example."

"Tell me."

"Count Raymone's cousin. The man we thought he wanted back when he showed a willingness to talk. But he's gone back to being stubborn while Amberchelle is still down in the prison pens."

"Uhm? What changed?"

'The old man and the girl who came with Amberchelle," Consent said. "I'd bet she's the fiancee we've heard about. An upcountry girl who stole Raymone's heart. Socia something. Who is supposedly chaperoned by the Grand Masterest of all Maysalean Perfect Masters."

"And that would be the grayhair." The Captain-General did not finish. "You exult over little triumphs while big defeats sneak up."

Patriarchal crusaders now owned the eastern half of the End of Connec – excepting only Antieux. They threatened Khaurene from three directions. Lesser forces, featuring impassioned Society brethren determined to see Archbishop Farfog's great vision fulfilled, had begun probing the Altai, discovering the incredible mountaintop fortresses of the Maysalean heretics. And snow choked much of the rural world, not only in the Connec but in Tramaine, Ormienden, Grolsach, Arnhand, and even much of Firaldia. The Grail Empire was blanketed. Artecipea saw heavy, temporarily incapacitating snows for the first time since antiquity. The war there dwindled into the doldrums of winter. As did wars all round the Mother Sea.

Wherever snow fell there arose dreadful rumors of Kharoulke the Windwalker, the god before gods from the age before antiquity. Kharoulke the Windwalker, before whom the great modern Instrumentalities must quail. But Kharoulke needed deep snow, deep ice, before he could supplant the gentler Instrumentalities of the present. Kharoulke needed millennial cold before he could rise above the vague lost deities who had supplanted his kind – before being shoved aside by the powers of today. Those vague lost deities beloved of secret cults devoted to resurrecting the lost lord Instrumentalities of antiquity.

The Marquesa va Runjan's sister the Empress insisted that she take up her rights in that remote town in the heart of the Empire's wildest, most remote hill country. Helspeth could not refuse.

The fury of the Council Advisory, of the Imperial court, of the Church, and especially of Empress Katrin herself could be described only as beyond reason. Nobody told the Princess Apparent how she had rendered herself criminal by opening that sealed mountain pass.

Almost no one would speak to her, let alone explain. She was a pariah and it might be catching. She was a prisoner now, in all but name, confined to the crumbling hilltop tower overlooking Runjan. The village, in its prime, had produced barely enough turnips, cabbage, and grain to sustain itself, with a small charcoal-burning industry taking advantage of the surrounding forest. Runjan was no longer in its prime. The iron industry had shrunk since Hansel's death, there being less demand for weapons metal. If the smelters were closed there was little demand for charcoal.

The tower had not been occupied since the last lord of Runjan passed on, childless, leaving the fief to his beloved Hansel. Its shutters were gone or broken. The drop gate could not be closed. Someone had taken the chain. There was no resident staff.

Helspeth came with a party of eight. Two were cruel old women who hated her. They were determined to punish her. Nothing Helspeth did could ingratiate her. Not that she tried to win them over. She had to work to mask her loathing.

The rest of the party were all one family. Harmer Schmitt. His wife Greta. Their daughter Grunhilde and three sons: Hansel, Fulk, and Fritz. The boys were named for Harmer's favorite emperors, the girl for Greta's great-aunt. Grunhilde was sixteen. And not attractive. The boys were sixteen, fourteen, and nine. Hansel was Grunhilde's twin. Not identical, of course, but every bit as homely as his sister.

The Schmitts were quietly sympathetic toward the Princess Apparent but dared not show it. It was a flawed sympathy, anyway, based more in dislike of the harpies assigned to be Helspeth's warders: the Dowager Grafina Ilse-Janna fon Wistrcz, the harridan mother of the Graf fon Wistrcz, and Dame Karelina fon Tyre, spouse of the Grand Admiral. Neither woman ever liked Helspeth. Both hated her now. It was her fault they had to chaperone her here in her rustic hell. The women hated one another as well, and had done so for fifty years. Both were petty and spiteful and had been chosen because they could be counted on to take it out on Helspeth.

Each had her own small household follow her. Just people enough to maintain her in reduced misery. The Schmitts were supposed to maintain Helspeth but often worked for her keepers instead. They put in long hours but failed to make the tower fit for human habitation. Then the heavy snows came. Never warm, never properly fed, Helspeth became gaunt, subject to fits of the shakes and prolonged periods of withdrawal.

She did not expect to see the coming spring.

She wrote letters to the Empress but they came out almost illegible. Not that there was any point to pleading. There was no one to carry the letters away. Even had she been able to get them past Tooth and Fang, as she thought of those horrid old women.

She had felt alone and been afraid in Plemenza. But in Plemenza she had had Algres Drear. She had no bodyguards here, nor any patient ear to bend. Captain Drear had been sent east, to a garrison ever threatened by pagan savages. The other Braunsknechts had been scattered elsewhere. And the girl who was the author of their distress still did not grasp what she had done to earn such draconian retribution.

Ferris Renfrow arrived during a snowstorm. He did nothing to conceal his horror. Saying little, he went out again. He returned with the entire population of Runjan. He started giving orders.

Dame Karelina challenged him. "This isn't any business of yours!" Voice heavy with scorn. Though her own antecedents were questionable.

Renfrow stared into her eyes. She wavered, but only momentarily. She was the wife of the Grand Admiral.