Ser Voyne stares at her hands, searching for the right words to say to express how honored she is to sit at the Lady’s right hand, but before she can fumble out anything at all, the Lady speaks.

To Phosyne.

“Well, little mouse,” She says, filling a fine porcelain cup with water from a polished ewer. “I have tasted this water, and it is sweet, but it wasn’t always so. And now it tastes of you.” She lifts the cup to Her curling lips, takes a long sip. Her eyes do not leave Phosyne’s.

“I can’t imagine I taste sweet,” Phosyne says, wariness in her voice.

“Oh, but you do.” She reaches over to them and takes Voyne’s wrist, guides her hand to release her captive and take the cup instead. Obediently, Voyne drinks, thinking of sweetness and Phosyne’s body against hers in the chapel.

The water is not honey, but it is undeniably good. It is cool, and soothing, and Ser Voyne feels something in her unwind. But with it comes confusion, and she stares down at Phosyne as the Lady plucks the empty cup from her hand and sets it aside.

There’s something wrong, here. She’s not supposed to be at the Lady’s right hand. She should be with her king, and Phosyne should be up in her tower. This is not the proper order of things. This is her liege’s castle, they should be seated at his table, and yet he has been relegated. Set aside. She can see now that his table is smaller, that it is shadowed, and that nobody at it can see the slight.

She remembers the weight of a knife in her hand. Prioress Jacynde, kneeling. At her feet? No, at the Lady’s, but also—

Also—

“Here, my dear knight,” the Lady says, and offers up a morsel of meat. It is rich and unctuous on Ser Voyne’s tongue, and it washes away the memory of blood. She forgets all about Cardimir.

Phosyne looks between them. Her brow pinches further. Voyne can almost see wheels turning behind her eyes. She feels a faint thrill go through her at the sight.

“And does this food taste of you?” Phosyne asks.

The Lady’s smile grows. “I do provide,” She concedes. “All of this and more.”

“You brought no carts with you. No supplies.”

“Didn’t I?” the Lady replies as She serves Herself a helping of fruit and several more thin slices of meat from the vast array of riches before Her. Voyne would do it for Her, but her hands are busy keeping Phosyne in place. The Lady uses Her fingers to pull each bit of food into bite-size pieces, and then She lifts a bit of meat and offers it to Phosyne, as if Phosyne were a tame little thing.

Phosyne draws back. Ser Voyne squeezes her knee hard in censure.

“Am I not your Constant Lady?”