And when the Pope’s own nephew had come up implicated in a scandal that involved Order holdings being sold for a pittance, Oriv had done his part to protect the light by keeping that particular corner utterly in the dark.

And now, I am Pope. Of course, he wasn’t. He may have specialized in the laws of property and holding, but you couldn’t touch those laws without understanding the other laws that held them up. Especially the Laws of Succession.

He’d been drinking hot brandy in the later part of the day that seemed now so long ago. It was a day, he realized, that people would someday ask about.

“Where were you,” they would ask, “when you saw the pyre of Windwir?”

And those who had been close enough to see it-surely most of the Named Lands, if the reports were true-would say where they had been, and the room they were in would grow quiet with loss and grief remembered.

That day, he’d looked up at a word from one of the acolytes who made up the staff of servants in the Summer Palace and he’d seen the pillar of smoke far south and east, rising into the sky. He’d disbelieved it, of course. There were certainly other explanations, other places along that line of sight; but when the birds arrived a day and a half later, he’d finally believed enough to call an Assembly of the Knowledgeable to determine the senior Order member. By the time that handful had gathered, more birds had come in-all with questions rather than answers.

They put forth the questions to identify the ranking brother. He’d known by looking around the room that it would be him.

And after, he’d gone alone into the Papal office and pulled the heavy iron key down from the wall. He’d taken one scholar, one scientist and two members of the Gray Guard contingent with him then, down into the cellars far below, walking the winding stone stairs until he stood before the vault.

He’d opened it, found the Letters of Succession from his friend, Introspect III, and carried them back up to the Assembly.

They named him Steward of the Throne and Ring first. When reports of the? reigh devastation arrived, he named himself Pope provisionally. It was understood-but not said-that he would lay down the office should someone from Introspect’s named list of successors turn up alive.

When Sethbert’s bird arrived, Oriv took his final step, and no one argued though all of them knew it was not the proper form. He burned the Letters of Succession for all of them to see and took his new name.

“I am resolved,” he said to the gathered Assembly, “to right this wrong and avenge the light extinguished.”

No one argued, even though it went against the teachings of P’Andro Whym. He named himself Pope Resolute the First and immediately issued the Writ of Shunning against the Ninefold Forest Houses and the man who his cousin, Lord Sethbert of the Entrolusian City States, had identified as the Desolator of Windwir.

He used your own light against you, Dear Cousin, the coded note read. It was a metal man who spoke the words of Xhum Y’zir and finished the Wizard King’s work of long ago.

It didn’t surprise him. Most kept clear of the Ninefold Forests because of those ancient ties, though on paper they shared kin-clave with many. But it was a kin-clave in the shadow of a past betrayal. The first Rudolfo had fled the Old World with his wives and his children and his band of desert thieves to hide in the far reaches of the north. But he’d fled before that Wizard King had sent his death choirs out into the land. Some legends even said that he betrayed P’Andro Whym and his tribe of scientist scholars for the murder of Xhum Y’zir’s seven sons in the Night of Purging, revealing their location to the old Wizard King. Because of that Y’zir had warned him of the doom to come and had given him ample time to migrate from Old World to New.

Walnuts fall from walnut trees, he thought.

He heard a quiet cough behind him and he turned. “Yes?”

One of the Gray Guard-an old captain who should’ve been put to field years ago but had been retained to recruit new blood-stood in the center of the room. “We’ve more news, Father.”

It had been a flurry of news. Bird after bird bearing note after note, all flagged by various threads of the rites of kin-clave. Red for war. Green for peace. White for kin-clave. Blue for inquiry. “What now, Grymlis?”

“The Wandering Army has fallen back.”

“They’ve retreated?”

The captain shook his head. “They vanished in the night.”

He nodded. “What else does Sethbert say?”

“His consort is in the gypsy’s care. Li Tam has approved of the pairing.”

Now this was surprising-and disconcerting. With Windwir gone, House Li Tam would now hold the bulk of the Order’s wealth. Perhaps, he thought, Vlad Li Tam had approved of the match before his Writ of Shunning had arrived. “Very well,” he said. “Would you ask the birder to see me?” Normally he’d ask his aide, but they were all busily inventorying the holdings of the Summer Palace and working around the clock to lay in the supplies needed for the Androfrancine Remnant to come home.

The captain nodded. “I’ll see to it.”

Pope Resolute sat back down to his desk, pulled a strip of message paper and dabbed a needle in the ink.

He’d finished the message by the time his birder arrived with the fastest and strongest. Pulling the gray thread of urgency from his scarf of mourning, he handed it and the note over. “House Li Tam,” was all he said.

After the birder left, Pope Resolute the First walked back onto his balcony and stood waiting. When he saw the hawk lift off, beating its wings against the sky, he felt his jaw tighten.

I am the Pope, he thought.

Shaking his head, he went back inside and closed the doors against the afternoon sun.

The Marsh skirmishers struck suddenly and swiftly, their sling stones dropping one of the guards and two of the Androfrancines before Rudolfo’s scouts could converge on their position.

A stone bullet whizzed past his head, and he drew his sword with a high whistle. Two of his half-squad slipped from their horses, pulling pouches from beneath their shirts. They hit the ground and rolled, the powder rite only taking a moment. Rudolfo saw them lick their hands and they were gone, fading into evening shadows. He heard the murmur of steel against leather and turned his horse in the direction of the skirmishers. He raised his blade and shook it.

“Mind yourselves,” he shouted at the caravan as he galloped past. Already, they were tending to their wounded, though by the looks of it, at least one of the fallen wouldn’t make it. Rudolfo took it all in with a blink and followed his men into battle.

Two magicked and three mounted besides Rudolfo… against how many skirmishers?

It wasn’t quite ?_anydark and it surprised him that the Marshers had come out so early. Usually, they preferred the cover of darkness for their work. He heard shouting and the sounds of a struggle ahead and spurred his horse toward it. They were already scattered, a ragged line of ragged men dressed in the stinking rags of the Marsh King’s finest. Whistling three bars from the Fortieth Hymn of the Wandering Army, he moved to the right as his other horsemen moved left. In the dark, beneath the powders his River Woman had ground from the roots of the ground and the herbs of the field, his two magicked scouts moved silently behind them, avoiding contact and conflict until Rudolfo whistled the Hymn’s sweeping chorus.

Rudolfo had not fought the Marshers in years. From time to time, as kin-clave required, he’d ridden out to exact some price or another upon them. The Marsh King held a violent court, sending his skirmishers out past the edges of his land on a whim. They would bring their war to some small village or some outlying house, bury the dead they made, and then ride back to their swamps at the base of the Dragon’s Spine.