“Have you ever questioned your orders? Ever hesitated to fulfill them?” she asks.

“Not yours,” Ser Voyne replies.

Treila frowns, tries to think—what orders? Girlish orders, for refreshment, for lessons, for sparring in the yard. Those orders? They meant the world to her, but she’d been fourteen, spoiled, desirous for the first time in her short life. That Ser Voyne marked them is . . . she can’t think of the word. She can only shudder.

“And King Cardimir’s?” she presses.

And she is treated to the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen: Ser Voyne’s lip curling in contempt, in barely restrained hatred.

“You know the answer to that, my lady,” Ser Voyne says.

“No, I don’t think I do,” Treila says, and leans closer. Her breathing has quickened so much that she is almost hyperventilating. “Do you truly hate him so? I would never have guessed.” She is breathless.

“He has misused me. I know that now, thanks to you,” Ser Voyne returns, and her tone now is urgent. As if she needs Treila to understand. “I have followed every order he has given me, even when it conflicts with what is best in me, with where my strength arises from. I thought that he knew best, but he has led me astray.”

“Yes,” Treila whispers, raises her second hand to cup Ser Voyne’s other cheek. Her skin is so hot beneath Treila’s touch, a sheen of fine sweat appearing on her brow. Treila wants to kiss it. Wants to drink it in. “This is all I’ve ever wanted you to know. I’ve wanted you to realize it for so long. For years, Ser Voyne.”

“I didn’t realize how long I’d been waiting for you,” Ser Voyne confesses.

Treila is shaking. Tears burn at her eyes, tears she can’t afford to shed. But what if she could? What if she could, for the first time in five years, lay down the burden of her rage, and rest a while, knowing she would be fed, and clothed, and loved?

Understood, at least.

But then Ser Voyne’s brow crumples in that sweet confusion Treila has been waiting for, the same confusion she wore the last time they sat in this garden. The confusion of realization, of shock. Treila draws back reflexively, then realizes that Ser Voyne’s attention is now fixed on something behind her. She turns and sees the Constant Lady, standing at the entrance to the garden. She holds a humming skep in Her hands, and She is looking straight at Treila with fury in Her multicolored eyes.

Treila is on her feet in an instant, ready to fight, but determined instead to kneel.

She’s had too many long years where bowing her head has been the only way to save her neck. She’s well-practiced.

“My Lady,” Ser Voyne says, in the exact intonation she had used when asking Treila why she was on the ground, and Treila winces. The world comes back into its proper orbit, everything once more in focus. Of course. Of course Ser Voyne did not see Treila and think of little Lady de Batrolin—she thought of the Constant Lady.