When the invocation was complete, Sounis walked back to the dais to take his leave and accept a parting gift from Attolia.

As the horses and men waited, one of her women brought it forward: a small wooden casque with a bowed top and a plain brass latch. Sounis was as hesitant as anyone who receives a gift and is unsure whether to open it immediately or not. The queen’s companion, versed in the moment, turned the case in her hands and lifted the lid. Inside the case was a dueling pistol, a king’s weapon, wheel-locked, chased in gold. Eddis had seen it earlier that day. When Sounis lifted it out and tipped his head over the locking mechanism, she knew he was reading the letters inscribed there: Onea realia. “The queen made me.”

Sounis thanked the queen prettily, years of training providing the appropriate words. As he went to replace the pistol in the box, he paused. There was a tab to lift the bottom of the box and clearly room to store something underneath. Keeping the gun in his hand, he reached with the other, but Gen forestalled him, holding the inset bottom of the box down with a single finger.

“You have heard my queen’s advice. My gift is below. Would you wait to see it until you have decided what you will do with hers?”

Sounis nodded and returned the gun to its place. He took the box in his arms and hefted it, judging what he could from its weight, like a child with a present. It was heavy enough to be a substantial amount of gold. He handed the box to the magus, who handed it in turn to someone else, to be packed.

“Your destination?” Eugenides asked.

“Brimedius, to free my mother and my sisters.” He and Eugenides had talked through his strategy in the tavern. It had been their one chance for a private exchange. “Then on to the pass to Melenze, to my father.”

“Fare with the gods, and be blessed in your endeavors,” said the king of Attolia.

Sounis bowed first, then embraced the king, and they kissed. Moving on to Attolia, with just a shade of deliberation, too slight to call a hesitation, he embraced and kissed her as well. Then he stepped before Eddis.

No ceremony was ceremonial enough without the appropriate clothing, and Sounis was wearing his best, his embroidered coat with the shining breastplate on top that Eugenides had commissioned for him. Eddis was just thinking of how much older he looked, with his finery and his scars and his appropriately solemn expression, when he met her eye. His stern gaze dropped. Sucking in his scarred lip, he cast her a sheepish smile.

The pain was as unexpected as a thunderclap in a clear sky. Eddis’s chest tightened, as something closed around her heart. A deep breath might have calmed her, but she couldn’t draw one. She wondered if she was ill, and she even thought briefly that she might have been poisoned. She felt Attolia reach out and take her hand. To the court it was unexceptional, hardly noticed, but to Eddis it was an anchor, and she held on to it as if to a lifeline. Sounis was looking at her with concern. Her responding smile was artificial.

“I will look forward to hearing of your future adventures,” Eddis said. It was stiff, and he looked disappointed. She did not release Attolia’s hand, subtly discouraging an embrace, so Sounis bowed instead. His polite expression returned. He bade her farewell and then went back down the steps to his men. The usual discordant shout of commands and the clatter of hooves and weapons and wheels against the plaza followed before the king and his retinue were finally departed. Throughout, the queen of Attolia never let go of Eddis’s hand.

When Sounis was gone, and the rest of the royal guard was dismissed, Eddis left the plaza and went directly to the highest part of the palace, from which she could catch a glimpse, even if it was just dust rising above the road, of Sounis, as he drew farther and farther away. She would have gone to her room and locked herself in, but it would have been recognized as highly irregular. On the roof, she was not alone, but only her attendants were nearby, and it was not so unusual as to cause talk. It was as much privacy as she was likely to find without drawing attention to herself.

She heard the king of Attolia arrive. She didn’t turn, and sensed rather than saw him draw near. From behind, his arms closed around her, and she was wrapped inside the long cloak he wore. When she grasped its edges, he used his hand to reach up and adjust the cloth of the capacious hood, creating a space no larger than the two of them.

“Did you send Attolia to me at the farewell?” Eddis asked.

“Not I,” said Gen quietly. “The magus. I thought you knew that you loved him—the two of you have been like magnets drawing ever nearer to each other since you met—but the magus was concerned. He thought the grief of leave-taking might surprise you.”

“I feel very stupid.” She leaned back into his embrace. “‘I will look forward to hearing of your future adventures.’” She shook her head in disgust and sniffed. “I should have had something better to say, something…more appropriate.”

He couldn’t disagree. Sounis had clearly hoped for some message of her affection to carry with him. “You could write him a letter,” he said. “A fast horse will catch him before he reaches the pass.”

“It’s not a letter I want to send after him,” she said. “It’s fifteen hundred crossbowmen and a thousand pikes.”

“You helped pick the numbers.”

She sighed. “I was still sensible then. I am less so now.”

“He wouldn’t thank you for a company of nannies.”

She looked out over the parapet. “Will he forgive us?”

“You aren’t stealing his country.”

“Neither am I helping him keep it.”

“Helen,” Gen said, “you sent me to Attolia.”

She stiffened.

He held her tight. “We do what we must, but we are not defined by our circumstances. Sounis will not change.”

“Did you warn him not to offend the gods?”

“There was no need,” said Attolis, smiling. “He couldn’t offend the gods with a pointed stick.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WE left Attolia with horses underneath us and all the provisions we had missed on our previous journey. We had an escort fit for a king, and we moved no faster than the magus and I had traveled on foot. Your letter reached me before we got to the pass, and I read it over and over until I had it by heart.

Once in Sounis, we moved across country, avoiding the roads and towns. I had a tent that appeared like magic every night, with a bed in it, as well as a table and folding stools for our meetings.

It even had a writing desk so that I could have sent letters, but everything I wrote seemed silly under the circumstances. Eugenides had warned me in the tavern that letters would go astray and that once we left Attolia messengers could no longer be relied upon to be loyal or safe—just as I must assume that anything I said aloud in his palace would be conveyed directly to the Mede. The magus had said the same thing. Both of them had urged me to keep my plans to myself until we were inside Sounis. It reinforced a sense I had of being on my own every minute, in spite of being surrounded day and night by soldiers and advisors.

The food was never-ending. When I pointed out the attentions to my appetite, the magus had to remind me that I was Sounis. Across my little state there are merchants who dream of putting PURVEYOR TO THE KING over their shops. There are men whose lives will change if they can provide me with soap. I am a patron of the arts now. I can found my own university instead of just dreaming of sometime attending the one in Ferria. It gave me something to think about besides war.