To decipher the tiny cramped characters

of a note sent on a pigeon’s leg.

To write

and to not beg him

to return.

To speak with soldiers

shaken by what they’ve seen,

exhausted by their horses’ haste,

their news partial, dated;

though they do not voice the word,

it’s written on their faces

when they speak of him.

That light.

To find an answer

the first time Keng, their eldest,

asks not when, but whether

Papa will be back.

To lie awake,

wondering how it would be

to hold the sword herself.

HOMING PIGEONS

By all natural rights,

they are hers,

hers to stalk, startle

strip from their feathers.

Likewise, the palace is hers,

though she condescends

to share her territory

with the king.

The sentries her servants,

tall uniformed door-openers

with paltry swords

in place of claws.

Recalcitrant servants

who deny her one door.

Behind it, irresistible,

the flapping of pigeons.

Feathered frumps!

VENGEANCE

They stole the daylight, stole her throne,

cast Fian down upon cold stone.

They think her nothing, think her beaten,

think the dungeon holds her in.

But hers the will which woke the dead,

hers the wrath, the wolves’ wild tread.

They think that’s her: defeated, lamed,

thrown to the floor, tethered, tamed;

think her trapped, her limbs bound tight,

think the blindfold stops her sight.

But hers the will that does not yield,

hunting allies, eyes tight-sealed,

finding in far-off desert sands

a beast to bend to her commands.

Her life the cost to spur that beast

to wreak, in time, her vengeance feast.

Hers the guile her bonds to loose,

hers the hand to knot the noose.

Hers the airless swinging death.

Hers the rain, the wind’s wet breath.

DARK ARROW

Airless dark, jaws agape.

Vengeance vaunted, flaunted,

arrowing to a target—

High on her mountain,

the dragon choked. Woke.

Bespoke the Hidden Queen:

“What happened?!”

Hundreds of miles away,

deep in her underground chamber,

the Hidden Queen dropped a fish—

fresh, still flailing—

into one of her six mouths.

“What happened? Nothing happened.”

“No.” The dragon gathered herself,

reviewed that fleeting impression—

more than nightmare—

fell, foul—

“Something, someone,

worked a terrible magic.”

“Who? Where? What manner of magic?”

“I don’t know.”

The dragon’s tail lashed

against granite.

“Someone with a strength,

a malice to match the demon’s.”

DIPLOMATIC COMMUNIQUÉ

Xau—

I think I’m in fucking trouble—

Fian killed herself,

and she wouldn’t have done so

without a fucking good reason.

I need a couple of weeks here.

Tiarnan’s a mess, blames himself.

As if he could have stopped

his mother. The fucking bitch.

At the end of December,

I’m heading to the Hidden Queen,

see if she can work out

what the fuck Fian was up to.

Come if you can.

Donal

MEETING

Even in midwinter,

the Crescent Dining Hall

of the city-kingdom of Trillium

was crowded with traders, travelers, lovers,

soldiers, scholars, spies

gathered for gossip, passion, profit.

Many of the encounters louder, lustier,

far more delightfully scandalous

than when the two kings met.