Yavena says nothing, throat clotted with ruminations.

An interruption: “Tell me, Yavena, why do the Ten Thousand Colors lack family names?”

“Because we are merely feathers on a wing,” Yavena recites, rhythmic, the words as familiar as breath.

The Dog-King cocks his head, ears pricking forward. “We know the propaganda. Tell us what your people think. Tell us if this ideology pleases you, if it appalls you, if you have secret names among yourselves—”

Memories spasm like birth contractions, like the convulsions of death; snatches of anguish and half-remembered diatribes, a swarm of faces and secrets, but Yavena wrestles it all down. She smiles instead, bows her head low. “Forgive me, Lord-General. But the hare does not trade gossip with the hawk.”

Another explosion of laughter, rich and wild. “If you will not educate us about your people, tell us instead why you are violating the edicts of your twin Courts. Iraline comes to us with all her papers in order.”

“Because—” Yavena enlarges her stance, prepares to author a lie that even the Gak cannot scale, only to crumple, stooping under her own exhaustion. “Because this is my fault. She wouldn’t be in this situation if I hadn’t—”

“If you hadn’t what?” The prompt arrives in an inquisitive whine, scandalously bestial.

“Been a coward,” Yavena finishes. It is, as far as she is concerned, an accurate summarization of the situation.

“You love her spectacularly.”

Yavena trains her gaze on nothing and everything, expression abstracted by a morass of emotions. “More than breath and bone and hope.”

“That is good.” The Dog-King nods. “Devotion wins wars.”

“Perhaps,” Yavena replies, not wanting to allow him access into her private concerns. She bows during the lull in dialogue. “If the Lord-General no longer requires my presence, I should find my rest. I only have days to ask a mountain to weep blood.”

“Find it, Yavena. Our apologies for keeping you. But a word of advice before you leave: Rules are meant to be domesticated, not regarded as apex predators. The best players are those who can make the guidelines play fetch.”

Yavena does not sleep. She cannot.

Serpent-silent, she pads through the hallways of the complex, hounded by a tempest of what-ifs. She knows Iraline. There will be no persuading her, not when her mind has settled into its chosen configuration. But there are other ways to win a game, are there not?

“Ira?” A puff of sound, kept low to circumvent detection. No one has explicitly forbidden nocturnal expeditions, but Yavena has learned to guard against risk.

“Yavena?” A sleep-hazed answer as the door creaks open.

No response, save for her entrance. Yavena leans back, feels the wood click shut behind her. A swallowed breath to steady herself. She arches her head.

Iraline stands before her, tiger-striped by moonlight and carelessly dressed in a white cotton shift. “What are you doing here?” Iraline whispers as she rubs the sleep from her eyes.