And everyone but Baru misunderstood her, everyone but Baru saw Tain Hu wishing the betrayal had come more quickly, and not the kiss. Only Baru saw the bitter love behind the bitter smile.

The Elided Keep’s silent marines took Tain Hu down to the drowning-stone and chained her up for the judgment of the moon and stars. The tide would come in, like history, and swallow the traitor. Just as Falcrest would in time swallow the world—unless Baru Cormorant kept Tain Hu’s faith, and disemboweled the empire from within.

Good-bye, Baru thought. Good-bye, kuye lam. I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood.

*   *   *

THE Duchess of Vultjag went down roaring defiance.

She fought the rising tide with her chains wrapped up around her brawny arms and battlehacked fists. She wrestled the eyebolts and the pulleys drilled into the black rock. And she roared defiance against the Empire of Masks, the Imperial Republic of Falcrest, the Masquerade that pronounced death by drowning upon the traitor. The surf swallowed her. Still the chains groaned with her might. Still the sea frothed with her bellows.

She chose when and where she would die. She chose the meaning of her death, and she chose the method. Rare is that gift, isn’t it? Rare is the choice to write the end of your own story.

So the end of her story is the beginning of another.

Not the story of Baru Cormorant, the girl who watched Masquerade merchanters coming down the reefs off Taranoke, and wondered why her fathers were afraid. Not the story of Baru Cormorant, the brilliant furious young woman who accepted the Masquerade’s bargain: join Tain Hu’s rebellion, gather all our enemies together, and betray them to us. Then we will give you the power to rule your own home.

Not even the story of Baru Fisher, the rebel queen who was, for one bitter winter and brief spring, Tain Hu’s lord and lover.

No.

This is the story of Agonist.

Baru Cormorant as a cryptarch: secret lord of the Imperial Throne.

*   *   *

THE pale man with the rowan-red hair oversaw the execution. He had a stylus and a varnished writing-board, and a form clasped in a steel folio, a form for Baru to sign after she screamed for mercy. His name was Apparitor and he was there to answer when Baru begged. Let the duchess live! Please, I love her, let her live!

Then he would show her the writ of deferment.

I, Baru Cormorant, do order a stay of execution for the traitor Tain Hu,

And I do acknowledge that I order this stay in defiance of Imperial law, granted only by the extraordinary privilege of the Emperor, whose name cannot be known.

And I remand Tain Hu to the Emperor’s custody, where her execution shall remain in abeyance so long as I provide faithful service,