Gauvard Colle watched the girl kneel before the chair on which the king had been seated, near the fireplace in this smaller room. No artifice, no adjusting of the room, drawing of curtains. She just knelt down on the floor to pray. Nothing more. It was so…ordinary, he thought.

There were tall windows across the room, opposite the door, tall flowers beneath them, then a garden, and then the first beginnings of a vineyard being planted. The river would be past the trees. Trophies of the hunt were on the walls of this smaller chamber, too. Heads of stags and boars.

The king looked as he had in the great room earlier: uneasy, vacant, inattentive, but somehow on the edge of doing something disruptive. His attendants were not with them now. A mistake? Gauvard had heard about incidents. They were why King Roch was kept almost entirely out of sight when unwell. Both of the guards, he saw, including his nephew, were alert. They could cross the room quickly, if needed. The queen stood beside the girl, the Maiden, and a little behind her. Gauvard was nearer the door, where he could watch.

The difficulty was that he suddenly couldn’t clearly see Jeanette de Broché.

It was the strangest thing. She was right in front of him, kneeling. But as soon as she formed the circle of a sun disk with her hands and closed her eyes to pray she began to shimmer and blur, to vanish and reappear in his sight. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. No effect. She was there and gone, present and not quite so. He had never experienced anything like this in his life.

He decided she was frightening.

He didn’t pray, though he saw that Queen Bianca had also closed her eyes and was murmuring words of a litany. She, too, was holding a sun disk now. Gauvard Colle did not do so. He was not a devout man, wasn’t even properly a follower of Jad, though he didn’t disbelieve: he just saw the sun god of the Jaddites as one among many powers in the world, in the many worlds.

The king of Ferrieres made a sound.

A guttural cough, then another. He was visibly unhappy now. He shifted position, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. Gauvard saw the two guards look at each other. They stayed where they were, though.

The girl opened her eyes at the noise. After a moment she stood up. And Gauvard Colle saw, with deep unease, that she looked…angry. Her prayers had not worked. She took a step forward. So, now, did the guards. He felt like doing so himself. Held back. Not his role here. At least he could see her properly again. The blurriness had passed when the praying stopped. He didn’t know what to make of that.