They turned off the main hallway before arriving at the ballroom. Cyrus’s curiosity was piqued but he kept silent, trusting the man to have a reason for wherever they went. They hugged the wall adjacent to the ballroom, then stopped at what appeared to be a door of a closet. The Coin opened it, revealing not a closet but a staircase. Cyrus followed the masked man up, and they emerged onto a wide balcony, dark and dusty. A shoulder-high railing separated them from the revelry below.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“I was told to give you a high vantage point of the ballroom to make your entrance. This here is the minstrels’ gallery.”

“A bit of a fall, isn’t it?” Cyrus said, and he glanced over the thin wall.

“Aren’t you half cat now? You’d survive it.”

The masked man slapped a grumpy Cyrus across the shoulder, and then descended the stairs. The shadows were deep, and the candles set into the wall nearby were unlit. In that darkness, Cyrus did his best to remain calm and survey the scene below.

It was like so many other gatherings Cyrus had attended. Men and women, generally in the latter half of their life, milling together quietly talking. A few danced half-heartedly to the soothing music. There was excitement in the air, distinctly different from the tension prior to a battle when Cyrus and his group gathered for a mission. It had a giddiness to it, perhaps even a childlike excitement. They still did not view this truly as war. Would they ever?

Keles’s braided hair and black-and-gold dress were easily discernible amid the crowd, and so she was the first he spotted. Stasia hovered near the far wall, face hidden behind her mask, axes hanging from her belt, and her word-lace strapped about her neck to disguise the color of her eyes. No Rayan for this gathering, it seemed. Usually the paladin accompanied the Coin amid his gossipy treks through the people, but not tonight. Cyrus did see Clarissa, though, the tiny woman full of beaming smiles and wearing a ruby dress with a plunging neckline. Beside her was an older woman in an even older style of dress, her gray hair tied into a long braid with silver ribbons that hung all the way to her waist.

This would be Kaia, Cyrus presumed. Perfect posture, and with a sword at her hip. Did she serve as a soldier at one point? How did she earn her vassalage from Lord Mosau? Cyrus clucked his tongue, feeling the first pangs of frustration. He felt woefully unprepared for this. Thorda had given him no lessons on courtship, politics, or the like. Everything focused on killing and survival. On becoming the legendary Vagrant.

What that meant for Thorda, and for Thanet, Cyrus did not know, and he did not like the uncomfortable way the question squirmed within his belly.