"I would like to know what you thought this would get you," Jhan says, about thirty minutes after the attempt on his life. He hurts all over, first from the stab wound that killed him, second from his heart violently restarting as he revived and third from a headache that seemed to beat just behind his eyes, only a bit slower than his heart. His hands are shaking just a little from the aftermath of the brief scuffle resulting from ambushing and restraining Prince Kelfin--disguised as his twin sister Teren--who had just tried to assassinate him on what should have been his wedding night.

His wife (husband? Jhan decides to go with "husband.") glares at him sullenly. Caris Kelfin was still in his sister's wedding dress. The gown is pale blue with gold embroidery worked in floral motifs with pairs of doves flying amid branches of apple blossoms. The gown is torn and stained after their scuffle. The veil is crumpled on the floor. The prince sits on the couch across from Jhan, his arms and legs bound tightly with conjured spell cords. He has a split lip and a black eye courtesy of Jhan, and he is still struggling and straining futilely at the bindings.

"I believe I was meant to be married to your sister Teren, not you, your highness," Jhan continues with dry sarcasm. He's pretending a bit, mocking the young man, his "husband,” by pretending that he doesn’t understand the situation.

"I'm not married to you," the prince spits out. Then brashly (and melodramatically) he declares, "Do what you will to me, my sister will never marry an undead monster!"

Jhan blinks. "I'm not undead." He was definitely alive. He hurt too much otherwise. Being dead was much less painful, even under the Mountain. The Seweni had never understood that the Speaker for the Assembly of a confederacy of city states is not analogous to “king.” So they had approached him for a marriage alliance with Prince Caris Kelfin’s twin sister--and the Archon’s Assembly decided this was an excellent opportunity to finally improve diplomatic relations with one of the Dosai kingdoms--and start a joint campaign against a mutual enemy.

"I killed you and you got right back up!" The prince sounds accusing and outraged by this.

Jhan can’t help the tiny snort of a laugh. His reaction seems to enrage the prince even more "You stabbed me, and I'm immortal," Jhan corrects patiently. "Now, I'm hoping that your hare-brained scheme was your idea alone, but my people are questioning your escort to make sure. I'll send your parents a letter about this, and I'm sure the Assembly will want to renegotiate the terms of our alliance with Sewen."

The prince's makeup mostly hides his flush, except for his ears and neck, which are bright red. "Will I be kept here as a prisoner?"

"You're not a prisoner, you're my husband," Jhan says, rising to his feet.

The prince seems to lose any control he previously possessed at that; he even attempts to attack Jhan, despite the bindings on his arms and legs. However, he immediately collides with the barrier of force Jhan puts up. Jhan closes his hand, and the barrier closes around the struggling prince and gently forces him to sit back down.

"We're not married!" The prince shouts.

"Everything was signed, and we exchanged gifts and dowry," Jhan says. "The people of Mir agreed to this alliance, and I, as the Lord of the Black Mountain, the Warden of Mir, and the Speaker of the Five Cities Assembly signed the marital contract," Jhan continues. "You also signed the contract and stood with me for the blessing of earth and heaven before my ancestors. That either makes you a proxy for your sister or my husband."

"I just tried to kill you," the prince says harshly, his teeth clenched. "Surely that negates the contract."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you, but no," Jhan says, and turns away from the prince, to go to the door.

Three of his retainers were waiting outside the door, Anvar, Mayur, and Chisen, all members of his household guard. He'd sent them out of the room after they'd burst in a few minutes too late to do anything about Jhan having been stabbed. (They had been extremely angry and embarrassed by not having suspected that the "bride" was an imposter and an assassin.) "Lord Nemar?" Anvar asks, not very subtly trying to look around Jhan and into the room at the fuming prince.

"Please escort my husband to the quarters set aside for my spouse," Jhan says. Anvar snorts, and the other two guards look a combination of skeptical and amused. "Keep an eye on him, and don't let him do anything stupid. More stupid than he's been already that is."

"Yes, my lord," Anvar says, and has Mayur and Chisen go in to wrangle the prince to his feet and haul him out of the parlor. Prince Caris puts up some token resistance and gets a good shake for his trouble before he subsides and allows himself to be marched out of the room.

"Once you've secured him, please send a message to Lady Pyr, asking her to meet with me at her convenience."

Anvar nods, and the three retainers head off with the prince in tow. Jhan watches them go, then shuts the door behind them with a sigh. The excitement of the past few hours was going to make it difficult to get any sleep tonight. He retreats to his study and spends the next few hours grading papers until he's tired enough to finally go to bed.

----------------------------------------

Jhan wakes early the next morning. After a quick breakfast, he receives the initial report of the interrogation of his husband's escort. Or more accurately, the escort and servants of her Highness Princess Teren Kelfin, the prince's twin sister. Among the princess' servants were two personal maids, a lady in waiting, and the princess' spiritual conductor, a priest of the Sarmateon faith named Arden Thinan. Also interrogated is the Seweni emissary who had first brought the offer of alliance, Lord Daran Simuir, and his retinue. According to the report, the Seweni had been entirely ignorant of the prince's impersonation and were currently confused and terrified at the outcome of the prince's attempted assassination.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

(Jhan is not inclined to be sympathetic, no matter how pathetic the prince's servants seem.)

After reviewing the interrogator's report, he sent the report to the Archon's Office, appending his account concerning the events of the previous night’s events It takes a great deal of effort not to add any editorializations concerning the incident. This marriage alliance was a stupid idea, Sozha, he imagines telling the Archon. Why did I even let the Assembly talk me into this?

Of course, he did know why he let the Assembly talk him into the marriage alliance. The Seweni had approached them with an offer of an alliance against the Kaneket tribes that were spreading into their territories. The Kaneket were raiders from the Northern Isles. They'd been building colonies along the coast and further inland up the Sonnu River toward the lands of the Assembly for the past fifty years.

There had been originally been conflict between the Assembly and Sewen for centuries. The Sarmateon faith held by the Dosai believed that magic was inherently corrupting and as a result, the Seweni didn't trust its use or its practitioners. There was also the very significant issue that they tended to be aggressive in seeking converts and otherwise imposing their beliefs on others. Despite the initial conflict, the Seweni had slowly become trading partners, though there were still some profound misunderstandings between them and the Assembly.

The Great Assembly had decided that a marriage alliance with Sewen would be good for the Five Cities, and Jhan had allowed himself to be convinced to exchange letters and gifts with the princess. He'd only met her in person twice, but he had found her to be intelligent and well-spoken. He had also met Prince Caris on those occasions, and he had seemed polite, if distant. Jhan had found himself to be cautiously optimistic that this marriage alliance might be successful.

Only of course for that marriage alliance to run straight into the Seweni fear of magic, and their belief that Jhan was some kind of evil necromancer king. Jhan was apparently the lesser of two evils compared to the Kaneket sea nomads for the Seweni royal court. (The twins apparently disagreed with this assessment, which Jhan had found out the hard way.)

Jhan thinks about this as he writes the letter to the king and queen of Sewen. He tries to be diplomatic, but it is very hard to be diplomatic about being stabbed in the kidneys. Jhan ends up going back for a fresh sheet of paper twice before he has something resembling a decent draft. He's just finishing when a servant enters the room to tell him that the Archon of Mir, Pyr Sozha had arrived to speak to him. "Have her wait in the study and bring refreshments," he tells the servant.

The servant bows and leaves the room while Jhan retreats to his bedroom to change into something a little more presentable than the bottom two layers of his wedding robes, which he had slept in. Grey, close-fitting trousers, a white shirt, a gold inner robe, and a black outer robe with a pattern of golden leaves. The outer robe was belted with a black silk sash. This was accompanied by soft black leather house shoes. He put his hair in a half knot fastened with a simple carved wooden hair stick with a few obsidian beads dangling from it. He gives himself a critical look in the mirror and decides that it's good enough.

From there he goes to the study, where the Archon sat at a table being served tea and cakes. "Sozha," Jhan says by way of greeting. "You received the report?" he asks, moving to sit opposite her.

The Archon is a small, elegant woman with a dark complexion, curly black hair, and sharp and discerning fox eyes. Her hair is up in a twist and pinned in place with silver hair ornaments. Her outer robe is patterned with flying cranes amid silver clouds on deep indigo silk. She gives him a thoughtful look as she sipped her tea. "I feel like I should apologize," she says after a moment.

"Why?" Jhan asks in amusement. "You're not the one who stabbed me in the kidneys."

"I talked you into agreeing to the marriage," Sozha returns. "I think that makes me at least a little responsible."

Jhan snorts. "You talked me into it, but I agreed to it. The only person responsible is my 'husband,'" he says. He hands the Archon the letter. "In any case, the assassination didn't take. Tell me if this letter is suitably diplomatic."

"I wouldn't blame you if it wasn't diplomatic," Sozha says wryly as she takes the letter. She skims over it quickly. "This will do," she says after reading it. "I've sent messengers out to the other Archons about an emergency meeting. I've also written a letter to be sent with the prince and his escort."

"We're sending the escort, not the prince," Jhan says immediately.

Sozha frowns. "Lord Warden, I was given the impression that the prince was subdued without extensive injury?" she asks. "Did something happen that would keep him from being returned home immediately?"

"The prince is fine," Jhan replies. "Extremely unhappy that he's not a widower, but otherwise fine."

Sozha gives him a sideways sort of glance, part curiosity, part trying to see if he's making some kind of joke. "That's a very light statement about someone who tried to kill you in cold blood," she says, giving him a sharp look.

"It didn't take," Jhan repeats. He pours himself a cup of tea and snags one of the cakes. Sozha continues to look like she wants to protest the flippancy, but Jhan interjects before she can say anything. "I'm not saying we shouldn't demand some kind of reparation for the assassination attempt. I'm saying that we're losing an opportunity if we just send the prince back in hopeful disgrace."

"Hopeful disgrace," Sozha says, her tone edging close to a question.

"I think it's not very likely that the attempt was part of a larger conspiracy. However, I think that Seweni's sympathies will be for the prince who tried to save his sister from a terrible fate rather than against a foolish prince who almost ruined an important alliance. I think if we send him back immediately, we lose some leverage in negotiations and an opportunity to convince the prince that I wasn't planning on bathing in the blood of his virgin sister, or whatever he was thinking." He pauses a moment, then says in a light, joking tone: "Besides, I've never been married before, and I don't want to get an annulment just yet."

Sozha snorts indelicately at that. "I suppose I can see your point," she admits. "I think you might be a little optimistic about winning him over considering, and I can't emphasize this enough, he tried to murder you." Jhan was about to reiterate some variation of "it didn't take, and I'm immortal" but it was Sozha's turn to interject. "Yes, you're within your rights to be lenient, to forgive the attempt on your life, but if he'd murdered an Archon or a member of the nobility or even a commoner, he'd be facing exile or imprisonment and we'd be demanding reparations from the Seweni. I am thinking in those terms uncle," she says, giving him a determined look.

"I haven't been 'uncle' since you were fifteen," Jhan says, a little teasingly. Around that time, she'd started calling him the much more formal and distant "Honored Teacher," or "my Lord Warden." At fifteen Sozha had been mildly obsessed with seeming grown up and mature, and it had been reflected in her terms of address. (Her younger siblings had teased her about it constantly. Jhan had teased her about it.)

"Uncle," Sozha says. "Old Man." The last was said in a tone of faint scorn. He usually only heard the latter appellation from his more irreverent students. "You've been a constant fixture in my life, and you've been a friend of my family for centuries," Sozha says. "I am absolutely allowed to want to nail your 'husband's' skull to my front gate. I'm allowed to be angry that someone tried to assassinate the Speaker of the Five Cities Assembly, even if said Speaker doesn't seem to put out about it because 'death doesn't take' for him."