It stopped Katherine in her tracks when she saw it in the hallway.

She completely forgot about where she had come from and where she was going.

It lay on the ground wounded. She was standing between tiny slivers of the wood that framed it, now shattered.

Her cheeks burned up, she felt anxiety build up in her lungs and nose. She began to wheeze.

She had just passed it before and it had been fine.

It was the portrait of Isabella de Ginefort and her painted face was skewered by the small bust that previously stood just below it, but that it had now fallen upon.

She sank to her knees and wept. When she raised her hand into her vision, it appeared her nose had been bleeding.

A black flag hung by accident by the view from Lady Isabella’s bedroom flapped briefly. The end whipped fiercely in the wind.

Hundreds of crows gathered by the façade of Souchon Palace.

In a blink, the sky turned red.

The roaring sea. An empty coffin. The visions came faster and faster. Candles going out, her reflection distorted, her shadow blowing away like it were made of sand, church bells, every mirror broken, shattered all at once, the mangled face on her portrait, church bells, church bells, church bells that were deafening.

A funeral procession through the main hall of Souchon Palace. Right through the tables that normally stood there. Everyone translucent and ghostly.

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

Grace woke up with a pounding headache, and when she looked out into the view from her window, a blood red dawn smiled back at her. She sat up in her bed and groaned. Her black hair pooled in her lap, and when she looked at her vanity, she looked haggard. Despite the many questions her dream had left her, she knew she had to tell someone quickly.

She jumped out of bed and dressed herself simply, full of anxious jitters. She stepped out, turned the key in her lock, and broke it off in a clean snap. Confronted with just the stub of the key, she grew even more uneasy.

For a moment she wondered whether it was Isabella’s death that was being foretold to her, or whether it was Katherine’s. Both were Gineforts, redheads, current or past fiancees of Henri, current or past residents of Souchon Palace. It felt so clear in her heart: Isabella had died.

For fear of scaring Katherine, she first visited Richard, who was in the library, seemingly referencing an ancient script while he wrote notes below a written letter. ‘Sorry,’ she said by way of a greeting.

‘Grace,’ said Richard with some confusion. She knew she was beyond red-faced and had likely all the hideous marks of a recent uneasy night’s sleep on her face.

‘Are you at all superstitious?’ she asked.

Richard chuckled slyly. ‘I might be a little superstitious. Why?’

Grace spontaneously began to weep. ‘I think Isabella de Ginefort has died,’ she said. ‘I had a vision in my dream.’

‘Poor girl,’ he said, standing up to embrace her. ‘Poor, smart, tired girl…’

‘It’s the truth,’ she protested.

‘It’s that horrid red dawn,’ Richard said, then shushed her. ‘Causes all sorts of trouble in the mind. Put it to rest, little Grace.’

‘I’m not little, Lord Richard,’ she said. ‘Let go of me. I’m the same age as Katherine and at least a handspan taller.’

‘I worry for you,’ said Richard as he relented. ‘I fear you may go mad. Correction: I fear you have gone mad.’

‘I thought you said you were a little superstitious,’ said Grace.

‘I’m willing to believe in small things here and there,’ he said, ‘But I believe we will be written, may Isabella have come to perish. Until then, no hocus-pocus application of your bad dream, please. I’m afraid if rumours start here pertaining her death, we shall be looked upon weirdly when Lady Katherine’s ship rolls into Bourrac port in a few months…’

‘So you do believe me,’ Grace stated rather madly.

‘I wouldn’t say I believe you… it just would not be the absolute strangest thing that had ever occurred,’ he began. ‘Hell, it wouldn’t even be the strangest thing that has occurred in Queen Katherine’s reign so far. But very importantly, it was the full moon last night, and this morning we had a red dawn, so it’ll be anyone’s guess.’

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

‘That’s real superstition,’ Grace added. ‘This is—’

‘Fake superstition,’ Richard said, implying Grace’s dream. ‘I’m well aware. Whatever you do, you don’t tell Katherine, or suddenly all over the continent, people shall know.’

‘Please, do not tie her to King Henri,’ she said. ‘Even if she is dead. And she is. I’m afraid it will be a horrible omen for Katherine’s life.’

Richard again took Grace’s shoulder. ‘Gracie, snap out of it. Nobody is dead, nobody is dying, and Katherine shall wed someone who is not currently engaged to another. If next time, you could have a vision in which she does indeed marry, please let us know the personalia of this husband, and we’ll have something actionable on our hands. I’m actually bound for Katherine, so don’t even think about weaselling your way into her chambers before me…’

Grace’s eyes shot daggers as Richard passed her by. ‘I warned you!’ she hollered to him as he left. ‘Don’t forget: I warned you.’

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Richard passed by his quarters to pick up the doll he had bought her in Bourrac and promptly forgotten about thereafter, and made his way to Katherine’s room, which was unlocked as Constance had left, but Katherine herself was, as reported by the maids, still in bed. He knocked softly.

‘May I enter?’ he asked. ‘It’s your spymaster. No news, just wanted to see the state of you since you weren’t at morning council.’

‘Come in,’ he heard from the other side.

He entered and saw her clutching a pair of pillows in her arms like a lover. ‘Morning,’ she crooned lazily. ‘What’s that? Why are you suddenly so interested in the state of me?’

Richard sat down on her chaise-longue by the fire and held up the doll. ‘I bought this doll of you in Bourrac and I thought you might find it amusing. Do you want it?’

Katherine raised her brows. ‘Were you planning to use it in the dark arts, Richard?’

He looked at it almost lovingly. ‘No,’ he sighed. ‘I like how carefree she looked. In a row of twenty of them, this one had the most strawlike uncombed hair, with the most tattered dress, and overrouged cheeks. I think if we left you to your own devices, you’d look a lot like her. It opens a room in my mind, you know. Where you’re happy and free. I thought the idea was precious so I bought the thing that gave me it. Katherine, please tell it to me straight… would you return to Souchon Palace?’

‘Yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Why, did something happen to Isabella?’

The synchronicity did bother him a little, even if he was still not convinced of the verity of the vision. ‘No,’ he said for now. ‘I just wanted to know. You’ve not been taking any interest in your suitors, I notice. Nobody has been invited yet. Is a piece of you in Souchon still? Or perhaps… in Bourrac, where I bought this dolly?’

Katherine clenched her jaws. ‘Why would it be in Bourrac?’ she asked.

‘Because it is in Bourrac where you slept with Freyza al-Khalas, the Duke of Tougaf, no?’ he asked in return without missing a beat.

‘Indeed no,’ she countered.

Richard chuckled. ‘Did you know I can detach my ear and put it nearly anywhere, Katherine?’

‘Funny,’ she said. ‘I, too, can detach your ear and put it nearly anywhere. Likely the only difference is that, when I do it, you won’t be able to get that ear back. It’ll be mine. I’ll have severed it from your head.’

‘This is probably not what you want to hear upon awakening,’ he said, ‘But it is important.’

‘How is it? Even if it’s true, I’ll never see him again,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with you? Are you so short on compliments that you need to show off your investigatory prowess on matters that do not concern you? What did Harcourt say when you told him about Freyza, Richard? Did he say good job? Did you manage to approximate the exact sexual acts that were performed that night? Are you proud of your work? If it’ll even spoil a bit of your sick pleasure, Richard, I’ll tell you that I don’t regret a second even if you’re printing a derelict pamphlet with all of the details. Fuck you. I’ll behead you too if you betray me.’

‘Katherine, please…’ he said. ‘In fact, I condone it. That’s why Harcourt doesn’t know. He’d freak and so would most people, but I think, of your options, it was an intelligent choice. More intelligent still is to not invite him to your court. All things considered, I applaud this choice of lover. I would just like to know who exactly you have told.’

‘Eleanor alone,’ she said. ‘She condoned it also.’

‘Ah, that’s not a bad choice either,’ he said. ‘I was worried you’d say Constance. Or Grace — has Grace mentioned any visions of the future to you lately?’

Katherine blinked lazily. ‘No,’ she said.

‘All things considered,’ Richard repeated, ‘Good.’

‘I am glad to have roused your enthusiasm,’ she said, ‘But I don’t understand what you appear to be doing. If you find out any more salient secrets about my private life, do keep them to yourself.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘It is in your best interest, my dear Katherine, to know what I know of you. Even more so, what I have been able to keep to myself thus far. I truly do not care for the details, but I care for matters of our national security. It is in all our best interests that I know these things to a rather detailed extent — and you would have found out somehow. Let it be said: I do not squander this position on gossip.’

‘Do you think I would have found out?’ she asked, looking past him towards the window.

Richard raised his brows. ‘You surround yourself with very observant women.’

She just hummed. For a moment, Richard wondered what was on her mind, as it appeared completely absent from where he looked. However, once he followed her gaze out of the window, he thought to see what was concerning her.

The weather was so fair that the first Massouric ships trawling their coast could be seen. They looked tiny but the fact they could be perceived at all was a rarity.

He got chills.

‘The cliffs of Bourrac,’ he said. ‘It seems rather busy by the shore, no?’

He took his spyglass and inched in on the window, worried about what he would find. They did not seem to be going away from the Massouric coast, even if for a moment he wondered if these were naval ships there to attack them. He looked through his spyglass and instantly felt his whole body freeze.

‘Black flags,’ he said without any further context, ‘Half-mast.’

Grace’s words repeated themselves to him, and he grew colder still. There was no declaration of anyone’s death. Could it be? Did Grace perhaps know more? Was she somehow involved?

When Katherine did not respond, Richard took the spyglass out from his sight, and turned over his shoulder, where the first thing he saw, was the blood pouring from Katherine’s nose.

‘Katherine, we have reasons to believe that Isabella de Ginefort has passed,’ he said. ‘Henri’s fiancée.’

Katherine snickered innocently and plugged her nose with a handkerchief. ‘You really are magnificently talented, that you can see that all the way from here.’