Byrne frowned, rubbing the corner of his eye with his thumb. “Really? He said that?”

Raisa didn’t slow down. “Does he even have free will anymore, or is he compelled to sacrifice himself to save the bloody line?”

“Hmmm,” Byrne said, still damnably calm. “Well, I would say he has some free will or he’d not have told you about the bond between queens and captains,” he said.

“What about the Gray Wolves?” Raisa said. “Did they have a choice?” She thought of her friends among Amon’s cadets: Hallie, whose two-year-old daughter waited for her in Fellsmarch. Talia, who would have left her beloved Pearlie behind in Oden’s Ford. And poor Mick, who had offered Raisa his clan-made saddlebag as consolation for losing Amon Byrne.

Tamron Court is standing in for me, she thought. It was arrogant, she knew—the notion that the invasion of Tamron was all about her. Gerard Montaigne wanted Tamron’s wealth, a bigger army, and a throne to sit upon. She was just the filling in the nougat—a chance to claim the Fells as well.

“We have to go after them,” Raisa said. “There has to be a way to get them out of there. What if—if I showed myself and drew Montaigne off. Or if I offered to negotiate. Or maybe there’s a way to slip between their lines, and…”

Raisa didn’t really believe any of these things would work as she spoke them. And Byrne knew it, because he just looked at her impassively until she trailed off.

“We don’t even know if he’s still in the city, or if he’s still alive, Your Highness,” Byrne said softly.

“He’s still alive,” Raisa said. “The linkage goes both ways. I would know if he were dead.”

“The city may have fallen by now,” Byrne continued. “How do you think he would feel if you went to the capital and were captured by Montaigne, and all of his efforts were wasted?”

Unable to contain herself, Raisa kicked the door of the tack room, hard enough to splinter it. Ghost tossed his head, yanking at his tether. Furious tears burned in Raisa’s eyes, then spilled down her cheeks as she turned back to Byrne.

“Amon Byrne is better than you, better than me; too valuable to throw away, and you know it,” she said, her voice trembling. “He is—and always has been—my very best friend.”

“Then trust him,” Byrne said. “If anyone can get out of the city, he will.”

Raisa rubbed away her tears with the heels of her hands. “Captain Byrne, if anything happens to Amon, I will never, ever forgive you.”

Byrne took hold of her shoulders, gripping them hard, the light from the lanterns gilding his face. “What you can do for Amon now is survive,” he said, his voice husky and strange. “Don’t let them win, Your Highness.”