The strings and winds softened to silence. Leopold released Safi directly before the throne. Henrick inclined his head at his nephew, and Leopold bowed in return. Before Safi could hurry back to her own throne, though, or even pat her pocket to see if the Truth-lens had indeed been dropped there, a command sliced through her.

Cold, but not bone-gripping. Clear, but not overly loud. Again, the Emperor said in her mind. You will dance again.

Safi bobbed a curtsy, her teeth grinding, her rage rekindling. Moments later, she turned to the pretty young domna now approaching her and she slid into the next dance.

Four Days After the Earth Well Healed

Furry and lithe, silent and feral, a weasel, dressed in its white winter cloak, scuttles over the forested earth toward Iseult. Clasped in its teeth are pages.

Iseult is too stunned to react. She has left the Hasstrel castle while everyone sleeps. Only Safi knows, and she would never reveal. Still, Iseult must be careful. Fon Grieg has placed guards throughout the Hasstrel lands. He does not trust that Safi’s surrender is real, and he certainly doesn’t trust the Nomatsi girl at Safi’s side. Cahr Awen or no, Iseult is not to be trusted. She is different, she is other, and she has a power linked to the Void.

The weasel reaches Iseult. It drops the papers from its mouth. Worn, dirtied, and flattened, they are pale against the frozen soil. No moonlight beams down, but the stars shine and Iseult has been in the darkness long enough to see. To her left are the knotted roots of a winter-bare oak. To her right, a stretch of evergreen hedges that rustle on an icy breeze.

The pages rustle too as the weasel stares at Iseult and Iseult stares back. There is something in the creature’s glinting eyes that is more than mere animal. This is no trained pet sent on an errand; this animal is sentient. And this animal is waiting.

“Who are you?” Iseult asks, though part of her—a deep part, like the veins of ore inside a mountain—already suspects the answer.

Then it comes, like it had in the castle: images to suffuse Iseult’s mind and drape over her thoughts.

Poznin. The Wind Well surrounded by six oaks, surrounded by Cleaved.

A tower workshop with rounded walls decorated in dead flowers and bits of dangling felt.

Iseult’s face, tired and haggard inside a forgotten ruin in the Contested Lands, where Esme had asked, “Are they owls or are they rooks?”

And lastly, a worn diary from which the weasel rips out pages.

Iseult’s breath hisses. Everything inside her has gone cold—colder than the winter against her skin. Cold as the certainty of death and Trickster’s endless games. Because it cannot be. It simply cannot be.

Then another image plays through Iseult’s mind, and she knows it’s true. So very, terrifyingly true.