So she was as much to blame as anyone for Stoffenbeck. For everything he’d lost there. More. Finding that Rikke had good reasons for turning on him should’ve been the perfect chance to forgive her. But news of one more wounding betrayal by his wife didn’t sweeten Leo’s mood. They’d both stabbed him in the back while they stabbed each other in the face, yet somehow they could glide away friends, ruling the gardens, loved by all, while he was left nursing unhealable wounds, hated and feared and alone.

“Why did you come here, Rikke?” he snarled. “Dressed up like the fucking fortune-teller at an overpriced carnival?”

Her jaw worked. “My father always said we should set our feuds aside, if we could. Told me one score settled only plants the seeds of two more. I was hoping to put the past behind us and look to the future. Please, Leo. There’s been enough blood shed between the North and the Union.”

He gave a joyless snort. “Oh, I could stand more bleeding from the right bodies.”

“Your wife seemed minded to forgive, and I always reckoned her the ruthless one.”

“So did I. But apparently I’ve been wrong about a great many things.” By the dead, what Leo really wanted was for her to put her arms around him and hold him the way she’d held Savine. But somehow, without meaning to, he’d made himself into a man no one wanted to touch. “It’s good to see you again, Rikke. Really it is. I miss what we had. Really I do.”

“You miss what you had,” she said, softly. “You miss what you were.”

“If you like.” Another crackle of thunder, louder, nearer. The way the damp banners rustled put Leo in mind of Red Hill, of Stour Nightfall’s standard and his own, two young gods facing each other across the bridge. But memories of past glories only made his fury cut deeper. “The truth is I’m a lot less forgiving than I was. The way I see it, you owe me.”

“Owe you what? An arm and a leg?”

“Something!” he hissed in her face. Glaward glanced worriedly over. Caul Shivers, too. Leo ignored them. “You owe me something, and I’ll collect. If I have to march to Carleon and rip it from your hands!”

She didn’t back off. Not a step. There was a lot of her father in the stubborn set to her face, glittering specks of rain across the fur on her shoulders. “If you want war, the North’ll fight you. Fight you as one, you can count on that.”

Anger was safe. He knew where he stood with it. “Oh, Rikke.” It might’ve been the first time he’d smiled that night. A hard smile, half a snarl, lips curled back from his teeth. “You know how much I love a fight.”

And he turned on his heel and strode back into the palace. Or came as close to striding as he could, metal ankle squeaking with each lurching step.