She looked at Cara expectantly, rather pleased by her logical argument. As if they were debating over a cup of tea, rather than with a line of wet laundry and the scent of rotting flesh in the air. But there the pleasantries ended.

Cara closed her eyes. Then she stood and abruptly dangled the clothesline over the balcony’s railing so she could grab it below. She picked up the basket now full of dry laundry and turned to Seraphel.

Her smile made the [Princess]’ face go slack for a moment. Cara couldn’t have known. She thought she was giving a perfectly natural smile. But she wasn’t that good an actor.

“Not where I come from, Princess Seraphel. Thank you for the help.”

Cara left. The [Princess] watched her go. Silently, she stood. Seraphel wondered who Cara O’Sullivan was. With a name like that, it was almost certainly made up. But who had wounded her so? She wanted to know. It was just a small desire.

That—and to live. But there was nothing Seraphel could do about that. So she stood there a moment, until the stench drove her back inside.

——

The young woman felt exhausted after the encounter with the [Princess]. It—had hurt, in the way of confronting your errors. Past Cara.

But…Cara shook her head. Seraphel was perfectly likeable. She might be the best [Princess] you could ask for, even if it did seem she was just a political tool. But that was as far as it went.

“She might have let me down too. But it wouldn’t have been her fault.”

The young woman returned the basket of laundry after hanging the line. She was just tired. And she knew that even that was a paltry, emotional exhaustion. She went to bed troubled, but slept hard. It was one conversation among this long, enduring siege.

——

Aside from Princess Seraphel du Marquin, Lady Risel, Lord Lantal, and, arguably, Cara herself, no one had a kind word for the [Singer].

Not even Culin or Sasi. Even they felt betrayed by her. Violetta didn’t speak to Cara; the young woman was given work because she was a free pair of hands, but she was a pariah.

Perhaps that was how it should be. Cara certainly didn’t run from the silent or overt scorn of the others.

She deserved it.

However, her sins were unintentional, or so Lord Lantal had decreed. If she had erred, it was by accidents partly out of her design.

Hers was not incompetence. Not…sheer failure. There was a difference, and one man knew it in his bones.

His bones, covered by that golden armor. Battered in places though it may be, it still shone like gold, like the rising sun over his kingdom. A kingdom he represented with every breath, the leader of the Thronebearers of Calanfer in this place.

Ser Dalimont of Calanfer knew true failure. He saw it in his weakness. He stared down at his broken leg and knew he was no fit man for the walls. Even so, he asked.