This work will keep light in the world. And before she’d seen that pillar of smoke what seemed so long ago, she would’ve said without hesitation that the nobility of that end justified any and all means. Now, though, she hesitated.

When she knew Rudolfo was a few hours away, she cleaned herself and washed the red from her eyes and dressed in simple woolens and boots. Tonight, she would do her work-her part in her father’s work-but she would not dress it up.

Jin Li Tam went to the edge of camp with the others, including Isaak, and watched the line of metal men running in perfect synchronicity across the white ground. Alongside and behind them, as if riding herd, the Gypsy Scouts rode their horses hard. For the first time since meeting him, she could not pick her betrothed out of the group of riders.

Even when they pulled up, she did not recognize him at first. When he slid from the saddle and handed his reins to a waiting aide, she finally spotted him. But she stayed at the edge and watched him, gathering what she could.

He was not himself. He walked more slowly, his shoulders slouched, and his face was hard and tired and unspeakably sad. His eyes were rimmed red with exhaustion, and the line of his jaw was tense. He wore the winter woolens of a Gypsy Scout, and the dark clothes were stained with darker patches that she knew must be blood. She wondered if that blood was Gregoric’s.

She watched him pass instructions to another captain, and finally she could wait no longer. She walked out to him, and when he looked up at her, his expression stopped her in her tracks.

In that moment, something broke inside of her and a realization dawned within her-a certainty took shape-but she pushed it aside. After, she told herself, I will reflect upon this.

He did not express any surprise at seeing her so far afield e so="0from the seventh forest manor, and he only nodded and grunted when she told him she’d brought Isaak to look after the other mechoservitors.

She repeated this to the captain who waved Isaak over, but before the metal man reached his kind, Jin Li Tam had grabbed Rudolfo’s hand and pulled him after her. He did not resist.

She called for a tub and hot water, for food and drink, and while the servants laid these things out, she sat Rudolfo on the wide cot and pulled at his boots.

The loss was hard upon him, she saw, and soon he’d move along that Fivefold Path of Grief the Francines spoke of. Now, he shook his head and mumbled and kept his eyes cast down and away from her.

Still, he stayed pliant, even lowering himself into the hot bath and suffering her to wash his friend’s blood from him. After, as if he were a child, she dried him with thick, heated towels and wrapped him into a heavy cotton robe.

While he sat at the cot and nibbled halfheartedly at a piece of cheese she’d sliced for him, she turned her back to him and poured his brandy.

Swallowing against the lump in her throat, she stirred in the first of the powders. Then she sat with him, forcing him to eat more and to drink down the warm spiced liquor.

After, she lay him back in the bed, blew out the lamps and crawled in beside him. Holding him close, she stroked his curly hair and ran her hands around the back of his neck until he fell asleep.

She lay awake a long time after, thinking of what was to come. She waited the full three hours, then stripped and pressed herself close to him, stroking him and kissing his neck.

When he responded, she pushed open his robe and crawled onto him, taking him into her and finding a rhythm that could sustain them both.

He clung to her but did not make a sound, even at the end. After, he fell into a deep sleep clutching tightly to her.

But Jin Li Tam did not sleep. Instead, she thought about the new certainty she had found when she first saw Rudolfo in his grief, and she knew that she had transcended her father’s will.

This child is not for you, she told her father deep in the places of her heart where she was afraid to go. This child is never for you.

She rolled over and faced Rudolfo, feeling the heat of his breath against her neck as he moved in his sleep to embrace her.

“For you,” she said. “Only you.”

As if answering, Rudolfo mumbled.

Jin Li Tam pulled him close and kissed his cheek.

And finally, sleep chased her down into her restless dreams.

The men gathered around Petronus in the galley tent, and he looked up with raised eyebrows. Everywhere he went now, magicked scouts moved around him. Meirov’s personal Border Rangers formed his private escort. Someone had even dug up a fancy white and blue and purple robe-from the smell of it, a relic from an attic. Petronus had accepted the gift, but knew he’d not wear it. All he’d brought himself to wear so far was the ring.

“Excellency,” the group’s leader said with a brisk bow. “We beg audience with you.”

Petronus chuckled. “You need not start begging now, Garver. Regardless of recent events, I am still myself.”

Garver looked around at his companions, twisting his knit cap in his hands. “Yes, Excellency.”

Petronus sighed. Everything had changed, and part of him resented the boy, Neb, for his place in that, though he knew it was a road he would’ve walked with or without the boy. And the Marsh King’s role in this was also something he couldn’t afford to forget. Why were the Marshers suddenly supporting the Order? Or were they simply supportive of Rudolfo?

He looked up at the men, and lowered his spoon back into the bowl of cooked oats. They’d tried to give him a bigger tent and better meals to go with his fancy robe, but he’d refused those, insisting that he be treated as every other worker. He’d continued to make his rounds, though now under escort, and even stopped to help dig the bones from the frozen ground.

“What can I do for you, Garver?” he finally asked.

The man was clearly uncomfortable now. Before the proclamation he’d had no difficulty speaking his mind to Petronus, and the sudden shift reminded Petronus that this role he now played honored a lie he did not believe in. That somehow his station in the Order set him apart in some way.

Petronus looked across to Neb. The boy sat quietly, looking from Petronus to the group.

Petronus sighed again. “You had no trouble speaking plainly when the latrines needed redigging or when the supply wagon came up short on flour and salt.” He offered the best smile he could. “Nothing has changed.”

Everything has changed.

Finally, Garver spoke up. “Excellency, we know how important this work is to you, and we’ve come up with a plan to finish by early spring if the winter is as mild as the past three. We can rotate men and women into the camp just as we’ve been doing. The new supplies are coming in well, and the workers are overwhelmed by the Order’s generous wage.”

Petronus nodded. “Excellent.” But the look on Garver’s face told him that he’d not gotten to a point he was afraid of raising. “And the problem is…?” He let the words trail off.

“I don’t know how to say this, Excellency,” Garver said, looking around to his companions for moral support. Petronus followed his gaze. He’d brought the best of the lot with him, the smartest and most able.

“Say it plainly, Garver, like you did four nights past in the council tents when we talked about curtailing the hunting because of the armies.”

Garver nodded. “Very well, Excellency. We don’t need you here anymore.” He flushed. “Not to say we don’t want you. You’ve done right by us and by your kin. But we don’t think it proper for our Pope and King to dig graves in the snow.”

“And I think it’s quite proper,” Petronus said, feeling the anger rise quickly in him.

Garver swallowed, eyes shifting to the left and right again. “You mistake my meaning, Lord, but it’s from my poor choice of words. Any of us here can work a shovel or wheelbarrow. But only one of us can be the Pope.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “The world just lost a Pope and does not need to lose another. The fighting has stepped up. You will be safer elsewhere and able to focus on your work.”