Kronmir’s lips twitched, and he made a horrible sound. Then his right eye snapped open. It met Giselle’s.

“Love you,” he said. Then he gave a shudder, and he screamed. Giselle pushed the priest away and leaned down to Kronmir.

“Will not Necromancer,” he said clearly.

“You did not tell the Necromancer?” she asked.

“I think he is saying that the will is not the Necromancer,” Father Davide said without a stutter.

Kronmir’s one eye looked at the priest and blinked.

“I know,” Kronmir said. “Ahh,” he said. He seemed to smile.

Even as Father Davide held the cross in front of his eyes, Giselle lost her ability to leave Kronmir to suffer. She leaned down and kissed his lips, and then she passed her knife across his throat, and then she wept.

And Father Davide sat with her, his arm around her shoulders, as if they were old friends. Or perhaps for a moment, they were.

“Duchess is in a state,” Favour reported.

“Don’t blame her. No one trouble her.” Sauce shrugged at the loss of Kronmir, and a little at the strange intersections of men and women. “The Patriarch?”

“We missed him,” Favour said. He shrugged. “Sorry. We all went for Kronmir.”

“Right answer,” Sauce said. She was in her harness, and she hadn’t struck a blow, and thousands of men were dead. It all felt a little odd.

She’d won, though. A great victory; a master-stroke, even though it wasn’t her original plan. Conte Simone had done the right thing, emerging from concealment to cover the marines. Corner had done the right thing; Milus had done the right thing. Petrarcha and Tancreda had held the enemy sorcery.

Did that make it their victory? Or hers?

Prepared as she was for men to claim all the credit, that hadn’t happened, and her people all glowed when they saluted her, so she assumed she’d done well.

“Pity we missed him,” she said. “Will his army rally?”

“His army is dead,” Favour said. The man was virtually brown with the blood of others. The light horse had been savage.

Ser Milus nodded agreement and handed her a cup of red wine. “Some o’ the boys liked Kronmir,” he said. “Lot of dead after they knew what’d been done.” He shrugged at the inferred atrocity. “Cap’n ain’t around to hold anyone’s hand . . .”

Sauce was distantly aware that Gabriel might have acted to prevent a massacre, but Sauce was made differently and was fully aware that the Patriarch’s army, massacred, was a problem solved for the next few months at least.

Sauce shrugged. “I’d like the Patriarch’s head on a spike,” she said. “But I don’t always get what I want, so let’s talk Mitla.”

The silk door of the pavilion rustled, and the duchess entered. Her face was composed. Her eyes were red, but not exceptionally so.