One soldier swore he’d hit Kalazan in the back with a crossbow. They’d even found a blood trail, but no body. No clear proof the “traitor” had journeyed south to the Afterlife for Thaena’s final judgment.

Later, I watched, envious, as people drifted away from dinner in twos and threes. I had just come of age when Sir Oreth had shown up on my doorstep with his eviction orders and his threats. There’d been no time for adult celebrations and adult games.

However, this didn’t seem the time to make up for that lack.

I rehearsed my excuses in case Tamin, his other guests, or—gods help me—the odious Captain Dedreugh turned chest or hindquarters in my direction. “No, I’m sorry, it’s my red moon, but thank you for the compliment.” “I’m still in mourning for my grandfather and wouldn’t feel it proper to engage in bed sports.”

Or my favorite, the one I could never say to Tamin no matter how much I meant it: “No, and don’t ask again. I may be nice enough to look upon, but I’m a monster of the first rank. I’d rip you limb from limb—no matter how fondly I remember wintering here when we were children.”

Looking back, I don’t know why I worried so. As I was the highest-ranked titled noble in attendance, everyone would have waited on me to approach them. Technically speaking, rank and idorrá-thudajé relationships are kept separate from bed play, but I’m skeptical that’s ever true.

So no one approached me, and Tamin never asked. For all I knew, Tamin had decided he preferred to run with stallions, anyway.

Tamin assigned us a fine suite of rooms, though. They seemed less fine when I realized the truth. They must have belonged to Kalazan’s family and his father, the unnamed steward executed for his part in the late baron’s assassination.

I couldn’t help but wonder just how many people had been claimed as part of that “cabal.” The castle’s neglected air suggested more staff, more people, had once walked its halls. But who was I to judge? That was true of my home as well.

The last Hellmarch had been hard on everyone in Jorat.

“Am I making a mistake with the bandits?” I asked Dorna later as she unbraided and combed out my hair.

Dorna tsked under her breath. “We need the metal.”

“Not that,” I said. “They threw themselves under my idorrá, and I did nothing when those men came to collect them.”

“You’re young,” Dorna said, her most common excuse for many otherwise unforgivable sins. “I bet Ninavis and her people thought they’d sway you better than the son of the man they’d murdered. Nicer odds. Taja’s dirty luck for them the soldiers found us, before those bandits delivered the full pitch.”