It feels like a trap. It can’t be an accident, that Ser Voyne is standing now in the middle of the cleared yard, worn down, barely upright, guzzling water. She’s vulnerable. She knows she’s vulnerable. One word from the Lady, or one strike of the Warding Saint’s fist, and she’ll fall. She will. She knows it.

And yet she remains alone. That, perhaps, is why when Ser Voyne at last staggers into the keep, chin up, eyes flashing, she doesn’t go immediately to Phosyne’s tower.

No, there is other work to be done, in this blessed, unexpected reprieve.

She has not found Cardimir, and she has abandoned hope of it. He is either with the Lady, or cowering somewhere private. But Ser Leodegardis . . . she thinks that, if he has any of his mind left to him at all, he will be eager to mount a defense. If she can give him water, he will be able to help her. She goes first to the great hall, but does not see his bearded, worn face anywhere. Food litters the tables, still heaped to groaning, but it is rotting already. Lettuce has turned black and slick, and flies buzz thick above the picked-clean bones of—

Ser Voyne turns away. Goes back into the keep proper. Climbs the stairs to where, not two weeks ago, she sat with her liege, Ser Leodegardis, the chamberlain, and all the rest.

This room is occupied.

Ser Leodegardis sits alone at the table. Beside him is a cup of, Voyne knows without looking, honeyed wine. She can only hope it is not blood. His gaze is fixed on a map.

His right forearm is gone, amputated neatly at the elbow.

Ser Voyne’s stomach lurches, her mouth waters, and she remembers the fine round bones strewn across the platter of roasted meat like pearls.

Not pearls. Wrist bones.

When she sits down across from him, it is with her full weight. She bows her head. She wonders if he can even see her.

“Ser Voyne,” he greets.

She wonders if he is himself.

That, he doesn’t offer an easy answer to, but when she looks up to him, she meets eyes that seem uncommonly clear. Then again, she hasn’t gotten close to anybody but Phosyne since her fever dream broke, and Phosyne is many things, but bewitched by the intruders if not one of them.

“Ser Leodegardis,” she offers, wondering what he will do with his name.

Did they talk, when Voyne was in the depths of her idolatry? Or were they only puppets? She can’t remember. Doesn’t want to remember.

He wets his cracked lips with his tongue.

Voyne drops her gaze to the cup of wine.

“No,” he says. His voice is soft. Rueful. When she looks up at him, he is smiling, but it is not happy.