Prologue: The Rogue Captain

Mahabali Hall was crumbling into ruin by this point, having missed years of proper upkeep. Undone by its own size. Four of the outbuildings were visibly abandoned, claimed so thoroughly by ivy and verdure that they looked centuries old, rather than the decades they were. The doors of the front gate were heavy with rot, not the slightest groove in the dirt implying that they’d been recently closed. And even in the main building, the north tower had all but collapsed, its roof folded in on itself such that the top two floors were surely unreachable.

As comparatively sparse in population as the Isle of Shadows was compared to Cambria or even Fortescue, Mahabali Hall was close enough to its only real city that transporting stone from the port would hardly have been impossible. No doubt, too, there were plenty of masons in Chaya that could have mended it, but that kind of work didn’t come cheap.

Eloise was right. Undone by its own size.

Sometimes it was worth it to hold onto the files you swiped from the tax collector, rather than selling them to the highest bidder. Sometimes the long play paid off.

It wouldn’t have been possible without Blaise either, and the metal plating he’d added to the Seaward Folly to break through the ice. Otherwise they would have had to wait until the sun rose again.

Robin Verrou was sprawled out in the lord’s most comfortable chair when he returned, claiming the space before the man even had a chance to react. “Count Savian, I’m pleased you were home. That makes this easier.” He didn’t draw his sword — no need to frighten him yet. Reputation alone would do the work. “Don’t feel bad that you weren’t prepared for guests. I imagine getting this place even remotely close to presentable is an epic affair.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, mind you. This sort of thing’s surprisingly common. Nobles don’t like to worry about finances like some grubby professional, so when a year of crops fail or, say, essence of nightshade is banned two years after your father dedicates half your fields to it, you turn to debt to maintain your station and lifestyle. It wouldn’t do to fall behind, after all.”

Whatever his other failings, Srin Savian had certainly kept up appearances in town. Before darkness had fallen, he’d taken four of his aristo buddies hunting every week. Even now, he spent about half of his time in Port Chaya perusing rare silks and making his face known about town. Most likely, he hadn’t invited anyone back to his home, or the ruse would have been over.

Without Eloise poring over hundreds of papers to find the most eligible aristocrat, Robin would never have even heard Savian’s name, let alone picked him out.

She was an excellent quartermaster; if only her leadership had risen to the same level.

At least she hadn’t been on Luce’s ship when the pirate-catchers had gotten ahold of it, if the rumors drifting out of Malin about Jacques’ ‘daughter’ were anything to go by. If so, she retreated towards what was comfortable and easy after her failure. Not something Robin could really respect, but he could certainly understand it.

“Do you have a point, Verrou?” Srin Savian failed to keep his voice from shaking, though he made a valiant effort.

“Once you’ve sold a bit of land to satisfy your creditors, your incomes are even lower, your operations less resilient. And so, soon, you find yourself needing to take on more debt. If it goes long enough, you end up in a cavernous hall staffed by one maid, with a leaky roof and a nightshade cellar being reclaimed by the forest. And with no guards left to keep King Harold’s greatest enemy from sauntering into your home and helping himself to that exquisite Lyrion single malt at the top shelf of your bar.”

That hadn’t been part of the plan, but the Count had taken a while to get back from town, and it really had been excellent.

“Where is my maid?”

“Jaya? Looking for you in the city. A runner boy told her you needed your red jacket for the fox hunt.” Robin patted the quivering count on the back reassuringly. “Don’t worry, she’ll be back soon enough once she sees that you’re gone.”

“G-Gone?”

“From Chaya, of course. Though if you wish to leave this plane of existence, I would be only too happy to oblige you. Your peers Edith Marbury and Edward Williams made such a request of me quite recently, as it happens, though not in so many words. Marbury’s castle, too. The entire thing went up in flames.”

Savian gulped, shrinking back. “Are you here to kill me, too?”

Robin smiled. “In a manner of speaking…”

≋

“Harry, if you don’t put that book down, I’m going to throw it into the sea.” Lizzie pressed her hand down gently against the prince’s ledger, eyes entreating him to pay attention. “We’re celebrating. Come have a drink.”

“I really shouldn’t. I still need to make sure that the payroll pencils out.” Deep in his books, a slightly confused pout on his lips, Harold Arthur Grimoire did not much look the part of a prince, let alone a crown prince following his father to war. His face was still soft, his clothes understated yet fine in quality, purple linen that made this sweltering heat halfway endurable.

Robin’s Cloak of Nocturne, by contrast, felt like it wanted to choke him every moment that he wore it. It was torn from a spirit of darkness; shouldn’t it protect me better against the heat? Alas, no. “It’ll still be there tomorrow.” He reached over and closed the ledger, then lifted it from Harry’s lap and passed it to the prince’s sister.

“Now you’ve got no choice.” Lizze smiled, not looking behind her as she walked it back to the captain’s desk and shoved it into a drawer, then dramatically threw herself back into the only comfortable chair on the whole damned ship. Somehow, for all the heat and wet air and battle mere hours ago, she didn’t have a single hair out of place, even after removing her officer’s hat. Her entire uniform was immaculate, really, without a trace of blood on it, though she wouldn’t have had any time to change. “Anya, another round, please. Make sure you don’t leave out the prince of gloominess over there, either.”

Anya Stewart, by contrast, looked like she’d just taken a bath in Imperial blood. Her face had been wiped clean, but the uniform was probably doomed to the furnace. She certainly took to the battle with gusto.

Privately, Lizzie had been worried that her time away raising her children would have softened Stewart to the point of uselessness. She’d been polite enough, but the task assignments had betrayed her skepticism, and Anya had acted accordingly.

No one’s going to doubt her after today, that’s for sure.

“I’d suggest we each drink for every kill today, but I’d die before I made it halfway through.” Anya poured Robin’s glass nearly to full, easily four or five drinks worth of the Lyrion governor’s personal supply of single malt, a gift to the royal party as they readied themselves for war.

It’ll all be gone by tomorrow, Robin thought with a smile as Anya supplied the rest of their little group.

Soon enough, they’d have to make the final push against the capital and deal with the last of the royalists within the walls of Malin, but that was weeks away. For now, they could properly rest.

“That sounds fine to me,” Harry said with a wrinkled nose as Anya overpoured his drink and thrust it in his face. “It leaves me out of it.” He let the glass sit in front of him, not touching it as his eyes focused on the captain’s desk, and, doubtless, the payroll ledger within.

Robin hadn’t had the heart to tell him that the king had fobbed the job off onto him just to give him something to do, and Lizzie hadn’t either. Maybe Harry already knew, and was just working that much harder to try to win his father over.

If so, it wouldn’t work.

“Let’s leave kills out of it,” Robin said directly to Anya. You’re trying too hard. Already, Officer Stewart had proved herself admirably. Lizzie had surely gotten over her doubts, at least, and her approval was what mattered to Stewart most.

Back in the beginning, it was mine. Before I set her straight.

“What was that game your uncle taught you, Lizzie? Never… something?”

“It’s ‘not once’, actually. And it… Not my uncle.”

Ah. Obviously the king had been the one to pass it on, in one of the many times he’d met with his daughter and left Harry out in the cold. Lizzie was being polite enough to talk around it, so Robin took the hint and dropped the subject. “Not once.”

“Yeah. Like I say ‘not once have I had children’, and then Anya and Harry would have to drink.”

Anya did right then, apparently deciding that the game had started, which forced Harry to reluctantly sip from his own.

“Something basic like that is fine as an example, but you want to be a bit more interesting with it. For example, ‘not once’ have I… let’s say, had an intimate conversation with a man beneath the belt.”

Lizzie and Anya both glared at him as they drank, but at least Harry seemed grateful for the reprieve.

A more self-conscious man would have felt bad about the boorishness, but something had to be done to break the tension, and small talk about people’s children definitely wasn’t going to do it. Making half the room feel old while the other half wondered if they were falling behind in life was almost tailor-made to ruin cohesion. They’d probably forget it by tomorrow anyway.

“I suppose it’s my turn?” Anya asked, her head already swaying a bit, legs dangling from the desk Lizzie had appropriated. “Not once have I cried after seeing a play.”

Robin chuckled as he sipped his drink, the only one in the room to do so. “The turnaround is only fair.”

“What was the play?” Harry asked, leaning forward.

“I, Julius. But not because of the titular character, I want to be clear! Asshole deserved everything he got. But then when Horace was stuck ruling, trapped in that suit of white armor lest anyone realize who he was… All he wanted to be was free, it’s practically a fate worse than death.”

Most of the room was amused, which was good, but Lizzie was laughing so hard her hand was pounding against the desk. “Horace was the comic relief! He only ended up in power as a joke. It was a satire about the Shining Prince.”

“I know that, but…” Robin couldn’t help but join in at that point, the moment fully taking him. Everyone here's finally on the same page, laughing at me. A more self-conscious man might take umbrage at that, but Robin saw the value of the camaraderie.

It hadn’t been that long ago that brother and sister had fought so noisily that the entire ship could hear them, or since Anya had been seen as a load kept around out of nostalgia and obligation.

Really, considering the personalities involved, it was amazing any of them got along at all.

Lizzie was driven, ambitious, and she never lost sight of the details, but that lent itself to a kind of tunnel vision. She did as the king asked and she probably would until her dying breath, knowing it would let her rise right alongside him. It granted her a poise and confidence that served her well, attractive qualities for war and politics alike. The question was really what that would mean for everyone else, which was very much still up in the air.

Harry, by contrast, presented a facade of the weak-willed scholar, a nice person, but a follower. And beneath it, deep insecurity, disbelief at the thought he could ever be king and fury at the father who barely even spoke to him. He had a lot in common with Anya Stewart, really, but where his fears were hidden beneath a veil of self-assurance, the Fortan knight was nakedly desperate for approval, worried about being discarded and replaced.

Hard as it was to blame her, it didn’t exactly make for pleasant company.

“I remember that,” Harry realized. “We were… fifteen? I think? I heard you behind me and thought you were laughing. Even at the moment when Julius died, which definitely seemed strange.”

“Oh, then, I actually was laughing. Bastard got what was coming to him.”

“He was a terrible person, no question.” Lizzie had already smoothed out her uniform, leaving not a trace of her fit of laughter. “But it’s a tragedy. He’s an antihero. Despite everything he does, you still have sympathy for him at the end.”

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“I didn’t.” Robin shrugged.

“Honestly, me neither,” Harry added, backing him up. “Is it my turn, then? Let’s see… Not once have I taken a life.”

“You’re not very good at this game,” Lizzie muttered as she drank, Anya and Robin silently following her.

And we said we wouldn’t talk about killing.“To be fair, neither were you. Somehow the Grimoires invented this game and they’re terrible at it.”

“Oh yeah?” Lizzie smirked. “Not once have I downed an entire bottle of marigold wine and then spent the next three days wandering around like a loon.”

“You told me you confiscated it from the enlisted. I thought it was a Rhanoir white.” Robin shrugged and drank again, the only one to do so, of course.

“I didn’t think you’d drink the entire bottle. And besides, that was just payback for what you did to poor Charles.”

“I make no apologies.” He smiled. And me? I’m the showboat. The best, and I know it, so why should I hide anything?

Anya Stewart worked twice as hard to prove her ability, and an outside observer might assume Robin did the same to prove his loyalty.

The scion of Verrou, rightful heir to Charenton, taken as a hostage when Magister Ticent turned over the city to Avalon. It had a kind of logic to it, but honestly, that was never something that really bothered him.

If Avalon had never taken the city, he’d probably be more or less the same person, only far more bored and decadent. More of an asshole, to put it bluntly, and he was already treading close to the line there.

Jules Ticent hadn’t done him a favor, exactly, that felt a bit too cloying, but it was hard to really have hard feelings about it. Charenton had partaken in human sacrifices, with the Verrous as their chief architects. No one was free to speak out, no one was free to rise above their station.

And then, leadership had changed hands without spilling a drop of blood. Now, by all accounts, the Magister was running things just fine. Sacrifices had been abolished, people were free to speak their minds, and commoners occupied positions at every level of government. That was certainly worth paying some taxes to Avalon.

It honestly didn’t bother him much. Certainly not as much as some of the other things weighing on his mind after a day like today. “I could use a bit of air. Anyone fancy a walk?”

“I’ll come,” Harry muttered, rising slowly to his feet. “A break sounds nice.”

They walked in silence for a while, ascending through the decks and out to the largely empty deck.

By now, it was late enough that the air wasn’t too hot, as wet as it was. A breeze had even picked up, causing the Cloak of Nocturne to flap in the wind menacingly, completing Robin’s image at the cost of being a bit too warm.

Most of the enlisted were celebrating on the shore, plundering Lady Leclaire’s finest wines and stuffing her silverware into their uniforms as fast as they could grab it.

Lizzie had spent what felt like eons complaining about using spoils as incentives breaking down discipline and reducing loyalty, blurring the line between soldiers and bandits, but the enlisted seemed happy enough with their victory for the moment. The fires were visible in multitudes stretching across the horizon, but each was confined to its pit and overseen by a junior officer. There hadn’t been any major trouble yet.

Yet.

“How do you do it, Robin?”

“What, manage to be so devilishly handsome?”

Harry’s face twisted. “No, I mean killing people. All of you are laughing and telling jokes while out there, there’s a massive trench where we had to dump the dead. Not just cultists, either.”

“If they’re with the cultists, they are cultists, right? That’s what your father says, anyway.”

“He says a lot. ‘Practice makes perfect’; ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’; ‘For a better world’; Just meaningless aphorisms he can throw out to end a conversation he’s gotten bored with while pretending to be witty. Sometimes I wonder if he even means any of it.”

Robin shrugged. “Does it really matter either way? Here we are. It is what it is.”

“It doesn’t bother you, wading through blood on some faraway shore for the sake of some imperial criminals that’ll curse our name anyway? Maybe dying for it?”

“Harry, no offense, but I’m not going to die for Avalon because I’m not going to die for anything. I’m really not that political. King Harold says it’s our job to police the world and stop Imperial atrocities? Fine, I’ve got my sword ready. You’re overthinking this.”

“You’re not thinking at all!We can’t even afford to pay our soldiers and we’re sending them en masse to their deaths. For nothing!”

Biting back a friendly jab, Robin instead patted the prince on the shoulder. “Harry, I know the whole payroll seems important to you, but the king just sent you on a meaningless errand that keeps you out of the fighting without having to talk to him or get underfoot in strategy meetings. Stressing about it isn’t going to win him over, it’s making your life harder for no reason.”

“I know you’re not this simpleminded.” Harry pushed Robin’s hand off. “You never answered my question, but I think I got the answer anyway. You don’t think about it. You push it to the back of your mind and throw up your hands at the mere suggestion of responsibility. So let me spell it out for you, Robin Verrou. You’re not a hostage anymore, not in any way that matters. Nothing’s stopping you from walking away right now and never coming back. You being here is you choosing to be here. You killing people in my father’s name is you killing people you’ve never met whom you have nothing meaningful against.”

“They’re performing human sacrifice!” Robin spat back, knowing it was in bad faith. It’s not like I’m here because I care about that.

“And that spirit of winter rules the south with an iron fist. On the west coast, they burn people alive in offering to the sun. In Micheltaigne they’ll leave them strung up on a cliff so buzzards can eat their intestines. Are you over there liberating them? Do you actually care at all?”

He’s got me there.

“It’s not like you’re getting anything out of this,” he continued. “Unless your true desire is climbing the ranks of the navy to even loftier heights, maybe becoming an Admiral? Sitting behind a desk while you order men to their deaths?”

“I—I never thought about it, really.”

“I saw what you were doing back there, you know? Trying to hold the team together. But that’s four people. Lizzie and I will be fine no matter what. So will you and Anya, most likely. I certainly don’t think you’re doing it out of fear, anyway. What about all of them?” He swept his hand out, gesturing towards the hundreds of fires visible on the beach, each hosting a party of Avaline soldiers who, like Robin, weren’t really getting anything out of this.

Perhaps he was waving towards the trench too, invisible in the darkness, full of people who’d gotten even less.

“This, Avalon, this whole thing works because we work together. We have to actually be more enlightened for our superiority to be anything more than propaganda. We need a lot more than that to justify sending people even younger than us to die for it.”

“We’re still going to win,” Robin offered weakly, staring at the spot he knew that trench to be.

“And then what?”

Robin didn’t have an answer for him, so they sat in silence a while longer, cooling off in the soothing summer breeze, the faint smell of blood still lingering in the air.

“Don’t tell Lizzie about any of this, or the others,” Harry said, eventually. “Even if you think I’m full of shit, please. The last thing I need is another mark against me with my father.”

“Done. Why say it to me, though?”

“Hmm.” Harry tilted his head, scratching his clean chin as he took a moment to consider the question. “Because you act like you don’t care, but I think you do. I think if you spent a few nights out there with them, you’d be just as worried as I am. And you’d work just as hard to protect all our people as you do with me.”

Say what you will about him, but the Prince of Pantera is no thoughtless follower.

I misjudged you, Harry.

“Why are we so short on payroll, anyway?” Robin asked, changing the subject. “We’re the richest bloody country in the world, and the Great Council practically bent over to promise your father whatever he’d need for the war.”

“Dead soldiers don’t collect. That was the word from above. They’re not sending anything until after Malin is ours.” Harry stood, his exhausted red eyes glaring at Robin, daring him to shrug again, as if this, too, wasn’t really that important.

“A penny saved is a penny earned,” Robin muttered. Who knew the meek little prince could be so insightful?

“We’d better head back.”

“I need a minute.”

Harry smiled warmly, then turned to go, leaving Robin to think.

≋

Ultimately, you were just another follower. Look where it got you.

Being held in some pampered cage was far better a fate than Harry had earned, after everything he’d done, but being trapped in one place would surely grate at him.

Especially if he lies awake wondering when or if I’m going to kill him.

Like I do.

Robin was jolted from his thoughts as a screech split the air, followed shortly by a streak of feathered brown wings through the sky. As the creature slowed, flapping its wings above the deck, Robin got a better view of the pegasus flying in, noting once again how poorly the common heraldry of the winged horse represented the actual creature.

It almost looked more like a sloth or a monkey with the way its clawed limbs kept it low to the ground, dextrous bladed wings jutting back from its elbows with webbing more resembling a bat, though heavily coated with feathers. It really didn’t look like that should be enough to support its own weight, let alone that of its rider and the bow and quiver slung over her shoulder, but at least there was no additional luggage, armor, or weaponry to weigh it down even more.

The so-called Queen of the Exiles traveled light, apparently.

“Your Majesty! A pleasure as always.” He grinned, voice dripping with sarcasm. “And might I say, you haven’t aged a minute since last we met. You don’t look a day over seventy.”

“So my appearance implies that I’m a full forty-six days younger than I actually am? What flattery.” She dismounted, a sign of trust when it meant she couldn’t flee as quickly, then leaned against her pegasus. “It has been a while, boy. I was beginning to think you’d finally gotten yourself killed doing something stupid. You ran that job on the Avaline prince, and then disappeared.”

“Just because I wasn’t in view, that doesn’t mean I was standing idle.” Robin thumped against the cabin door, giving Count Savian the signal to emerge into view. “Savian, this is the Queen of the Exiles, whom I’m sure you’ve heard of. Queenie, I would like to introduce you to Avalon’s most eligible soon-to-be dead bachelor, Count Srin Savian.”

In a rather unimpressive announcement of his presence, Savian merely raised a finger. “I feel the need, once again, to clarify that you don’t actually plan to kill me. No amount of money is worth that.”

“Once again, I’m speaking lyrically. So far as the world believes, you’re already grievously wounded, fighting for your life against injuries inflicted by the devastatingly devious dastard, Robin Verrou.” He turned back to the Exile Queen. “Poor Savian here is going to fight like a spirit, but eventually he’ll succumb to his wounds. His crumbling castle, his title, and most importantly, his debts, shall pass on to his designated heir.”

The old woman got it immediately, though the Count remained confused. “Do you have children, Count Savian?”

He’s liable to take that as a threat, Robin thought with a bit of amusement.

“No, milady. Um.. Your Grace? Majesty?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, eyeing the count up and down. “I don’t have anyone I trust that also has the right look.”

“Not to speak too ill of the country where I was raised, but I highly doubt that any of them will notice an issue. Savian here is from the western isles, already ‘different’ and ‘foreign’ enough for most Cambrians.”

The Queen of the Exiles narrowed her eyes. “That may be, but I’m sure there were also mainland aristocrats sliding into poverty that wouldn’t be twigged as ‘foreign’ in the same way. Less suspicious.”

“Somewhere, probably, but they’re harder to find. The Owls and Harpies tend to keep their members funded as a matter of course, and just replace anyone who’s being too demanding with the party coffers. That, and it would be so much harder to find a good match.”

“A good match,” she repeated skeptically.

“Good enough to work.”

“Perhaps… Still, I wish you could have found an older one. It sharply limits our options, keeping this believable.”

“Um, excuse me, but—”

“How old are you exactly, Count Savian?”

The aristocrat blinked. “Fifty-four.”

“See? We could get someone pushing forty and it’d still be possible. Don’t need to go a lot younger than that for believability.”

“But it would be better…”

“I—I’m sorry, but could someone please explain what is happening?”

“I said I’d wipe away your debts and leave you with a massive pile of gold to take anywhere in the world you could want. That’s because they’re going to pass on to your son when you die.”

“But I don’t have a son…”

“Your daughter, then,” the Queen of the Exiles offered. “That part isn’t really important.”

“I’m not—” The count blinked, finally understanding what made him valuable. “You’re trying to slip an infiltrator in. An aristocrat handpicked by Avalon’s greatest enemies to help tear it down from within.”

“Do you have a problem with that?” Robin asked.

“As long as I get what you promised me? By all means. There’s no love lost between me and the Crown. I often think fondly of the time before Avalon’s grip set in, my family growing our nightshade in peace.” By which, of course, you mean your servants and tenant farmers. You and your family had nothing to do with the actual work. “If I may, I’d recommend someone young enough to attend the Cambrian College. I’m sure you can afford the tuition.”

“That’s precisely what I was thinking,” Robin said. “Time and again, our lack of technical knowledge has made it harder to do our jobs properly. Do you have anyone that fits the bill, oh Queen of mine?”

The Exile Queen wrinkled her brow, considering her answer for long moments. “I might. He speaks Avaline as well as any native, and he’s eager for adventure. The look isn’t the best match, and teaching him etiquette will be grueling, but I think I can make it work. I’ll send him to Condorcet when he’s ready and you can begin the handoff.”

“Guerron,” Robin corrected. “That is where the sun fell, and where it will rise again. That way we’re not embarking on this venture ignorant of the greater metaphysics.”

“So be it.” Beneath her hard face, Robin caught the slightest hint of a smile. “Well done, Captain Verrou.”

That explanation was good enough, then. Good.

He wouldn’t want her to think that his personal business was getting entangled with anything, but in truth, there was another reason to depart from Guerron that had nothing to do with this venture.

It’s time to pay a visit to an old friend.