“Tell your king that the final salvation of his people awaits him in Aurdwynn. Tell him—” And I bit my tongue, checking carefully the words I had prepared, keenly aware that Iscend listened to be sure I did not disobey Hesychast’s plan. “Tell him that the bride of the mountains will be Heingyl Ri. Tell him that through their union she will deliver all the milk and grain of Aurdwynn unto the Mansions of the Stakhieczi. Tell your king that if he marries Heingyl Ri he will save his people forever from the Old Foe.”

“Heingyl Ree.” His head trembled against the brackets that held it in place. “Yesh. Heingyl Ree.”

“You came to find a queen for your king. Now you have her. She is Governor Heingyl Ri the Stag Duchess.”

“But…” He frowned incredibly: the low corners of his mouth almost reached the cabled muscles of his neck. “But the dowry … the blood price…”

Hesychast had explained his plan quite succinctly. “The solution to the Stakhieczi problem is trivial. We simply give the Necessary King everything he wants. His people will eat our food, and have babies, and very soon there will be too many of them. The Stakhi will starve by the millions without our trade. After that they will never dare invade.”

Hesychast hadn’t accounted for one thing, of course.

The Necessary King’s honor. The King’s need to redeem himself before his court. To show them the woman who had made a fool of him roped from the ceiling, hooks through her ankles, her scalp slashed open to drain her blood through her thoughts.

He would be destroyed if he could not punish his betrayer.

“I have the dowry,” I whispered. “I promise that I will deliver the dowry to your king. She is in my grasp now. Yes. I offer as dowry the traitor Baru Cormorant.”

*   *   *

“WHO the fuck is that?” Baru said.

Xe had convinced Baru to come out and watch the dawn on Moem’s eastern cliffs. Baru found herself in an oddly pleasant mood. A warmth ran between her and Xe. Not the drug rush of infatuation, but a friendly understanding, like a blanket.

She had tried to warn Xe that she might be hurt for association with Baru. The priestess shrugged it off. “All will happen as it must. Take what you have at hand.”

Xe’s morning calisthenics required one to do everything very slowly. A minute for a single crunch, a pushup held for a hundred count. Baru lost patience after she fell on her face, and started doing her Naval System exercises, huffing and uffing and hissing while Xe posed in the dawnlight with her muscles taut and gleaming. In her effort to avoid staring too much at Xe, Baru watched the sea, and so she saw the boat first.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Who the fuck is who?” Xe asked.

“Look. Someone’s coming in with the tide.”