The slick sound of death in the throne room, the buzzing of bees echoing around the Loving Saint’s words, both have primed her poorly. Ser Voyne, in armor, bloody and disheveled, pitches her straight into the painful vice grip of memory. Of nightmare. Her father, out in the yard, upon a platform. On his knees. Begging, as Ser Voyne raised her blade. The audience: her family, the king, every servant of her house. She’d looked away, when the sword fell. When her father’s humiliatingly desperate noises ceased, and there was only the wet thunk, the roll of his head.

You have no time for this. She forces herself to look at Ser Voyne and remember her, weak and so reliant on Phosyne.

But is it even her? The armor she wears is all wrong, sitting strangely. This might be instead the Loving Saint, wearing the guise best suited to hurt her. To spur her to foolish decisions. To run and fall at this woman’s feet and beg for her protection.

Beg, because Ser Voyne owes her this much, doesn’t she?

Five years. It’s been five years, and she is being a child, wanting to still play out this drama. Wanting some apology for what is done and gone.

The Loving Saint is hunting her. And this, she is certain, is a trap. It is time to cut out her weakness, once and for all. She adjusts her grip on the knife, this time for keeps, and begins to edge around the clearing.

Treila’s halfway to her target when her foot lands on the curved shell of a snail. It cracks open before she can pull her weight back.

Ser Voyne’s head jerks up at the sound, turns in her direction.

Treila freezes. She’s in the weeds, but not so far back as to be invisible—to anybody else. She waits for Voyne’s gaze to skip over her. Because the real Ser Voyne cannot notice her, she reminds herself. Cannot even conceive of her.

But she is seen.

Voyne’s eyes widen. Her jaw goes slack for a moment, then tenses. There’s a flicker in her eyes, like there was after her confession, when she’d turned to see Treila for the first time in so many years: pain, and confusion, and the smallest hint of submission. There’s none of the bewitched adoration.

It is a cunning mask.

Her flesh is blotched red and her hair, where it is not shorn off, is plastered to her scalp with sweat. It’s not the form the Loving Saint took upon the battlements, but he’s capable of many others. He’s advancing on her now like she is a skittish colt, one hand out low, placating.

She wishes he would just lunge and take her.

Shaking, Treila brings her knife up between them.