SPRING came to Aurdwynn, and the streets of Treatymont bloomed with winter corpses.

Over the last four weeks Province Admiral Juris Ormsment had watched this corpse’s black foot grow out of a melting ice dam. This was her favorite spot in the city, a garden gallery off Arwybon Plaza, and she came here whenever she could to escape the suffocating Governor’s House, but the foot had rather ruined the mood. With the city’s workforce depleted in Cattlson’s debacle, corpses came out of the ice faster than they could be cleared. This one’s killers had cut away the big toe for a rebel bounty. (Or, maybe, it had been eaten. Samne Maroyad insisted there was such a thing as an ice-tunneling rat.) Probably this dead man was a faithful citizen, killed for his loyalty.

Killed like too many others.

Dead sailors in a warm harbor, their eyes and their guts emptied by the gulls. And the chips of teeth left in their broken jaws chattered as they begged her:

Why did you abandon us, Admiral Ormsment? Where were you when she struck?

Why did you let this happen?

She flattened the rocket signal across her lap and read it again.

ANNALILA TO TREATYMONT/ADMIRAL’S EYES ONLY

PASS BY ROCKET RELAY HIGHEST IMPORTANCE

ORMSMENT:

I HAVE CRITICAL NEWS.

EXCELLENT WORK BY LT CDR AMINATA HAS GIVEN US A LEAD.

IMPERIAL AGENT BARU CORMORANT—SAME AGENT WHO EXECUTED THE MASSACRE OF YOUR SAILORS AT WELTHONY—ALSO BAITED THE ORIATI ATTACK ON YOUR PROVINCE.

SHE IS INVOLVED IN PLOT TO TRIGGER SECOND ARMADA WAR. SUSPECT IMPERIAL THRONE DESIRES WAR TO FORCE ACCESS TO ORIATI MBO.

CONSIDER THIS AGENT HIGHEST POSSIBLE THREAT TO ASHEN SEA PEACE.

I HAVE DEPLOYED NULLSIN AND RNS ASCENTATIC TO TRACK AND SECURE HER. HOLD YOUR COMMAND. DO NOT DO ANYTHING WHICH COULD COMPROMISE US OR LEAD TO PURGE. I REPEAT DO NOT MOVE TOO SOON.

PROVINCE ADMIRAL FALCREST AHANNA CROFTARE HAS BEEN INFORMED AND WILL REPLY.

JURIS. DO NOT GO AFTER HER.

REAR ADMIRAL SAMNE MAROYAD

ANNALILA FORTRESS

CAUTERIA