The sound snapped in the now-silent stable yard, followed by gasps of alarm. Everyone was staring. Kem rocked back from the force of the blow, but he did not flinch. He stared with bewildered shock.

“Your name is Kema. It’s the name I gave my daughter the day she was born to my concubine Owlet.” He addressed his interlocutor, a younger, surlier-looking man than the mild old interlocutor Elen remembered from their five years at Duenn Manor. “I call her Owlet, for her big eyes, always staring.”

“In fear,” murmured Elen in a hoarse whisper.

Lord Duenn did not hear because he was still talking. “She was my favorite.”

“She was not,” spat Elen, forgetting prudence. “You were done with her. You handed her over to the barracks. You said your soldiers needed their fun.”

He slammed her in the belly with the butt of his whip. The blow doubled her over, pain radiating deep into her core. Through the agony, she heard him launch into one of his beloved speeches, his voice carrying across the stable yard. His Woodfall accent was pronounced, although he spoke with formal imperial diction.

“Ellet. That is the name they called this one, a sneaky, sly weasel. A quick learner, who would volunteer for any task if it got her an extra slice of bread or a look into a chamber where she didn’t belong. You were not at the Manor in those days, so you never met Captain Roel.” This comment was addressed to the interlocutor but meant for all. “The poor captain was entirely taken in by her, treated her like a son, though she’s got no cock to make her a man even if she dresses and walks like one. I know you folk in the heartland of the empire don’t care about such things, mixing folk up as if people are stew, more’s the pity for you. But we in the north do care. The emperor leaves us be to live and act as we wish in our own territories because we are loyal to the empire and pay a generous tithe to the temple and the palace. She was never loyal, though she lived safely inside the Manor walls for five years. She ate at the Manor table and took the place of a youth who could have become an honorable militiaman. She never walked with honor. She was a thief looking to steal my bread and my woman and my child. Now I’ve caught up with her. Find Owlet. Bring her to me.”

Elen was finally able to straighten, teeth set against the throb in her abdomen. There would be a bruise. But as much as it ached to think of Aoving dead, at least her sister would be spared this reunion. “She is dead. Out of your reach.”