She has waited months and months, months longer than she thought, and until this very moment she didn’t know what she was waiting for. A moment to slip some poisoned nectar into her drink? A night when Ser Voyne sat alone, distracted, her throat bare to a quick knife from an unexpected corner?

But this is far more poetic, and it is almost worth the roaring pit of her stomach, the terror of the cavern below the castle.

She will break Ser Voyne’s spirit, the same way hers was broken.

It will only take the slightest push.

Ser Voyne lingers a moment longer, and then she turns, not to the keep where she has been holed up for the last week, but to the great hall, to the walled-off sod of the kitchen garden. To the scene of last week’s riot, but Treila doesn’t think that’s what’s on her mind.

She trails after, head down. Pulled inexorably toward her, and feeling, for just a moment, like the girl who adored the great Ser Voyne, who thought something special was quickening between them. She knows better now, but this close, the old habits stir back to life.

Behind her, the nuns lift their burdens; they will take the icons around the walls, then down again to the lower bailey, more succor for the innocents. Treila quickens her pace, and follows Voyne into the garden, close enough on her heels that the guards don’t question it.

Voyne slows as she takes in the rows of feeble plants. There’s not enough rain to keep them fed, not enough water to go around, and many have been harvested too soon to provide some limited sustenance. What remains is not encouraging. Voyne’s expression darkens, and Treila thinks she hears her breathing hitch, as if with repressed sobs.

But the knight doesn’t cry. She sits on a low bench, stares down at her hands.

Treila considers her approach. She has avoided being alone with Ser Voyne for this long out of caution, and she isn’t sure she’s ready to announce herself. But a woman like Ser Voyne, cautious though she is, is also used to having a certain amount of power. Impunity. She knows more of the servants by name than most, Treila will concede, but not all. Those who do not serve her directly are simply acts of nature. A soothing rain, a warm day. A breeze.

Treila tries not to think of the breeze below the earth, or the heat of the day sapping what little strength she has. She needs to eat.

She needs this more.

“Ser knight,” Treila murmurs, voice pitched in such a way that it could belong to anyone. “May I get you something?”