“To avert the final ruin of hope are all actions no matter how despicable permitted? To put it more simply, is all truly fair in love and war?”

My name is Varsa Siveray and I have failed a kingdom. I had suspected it for the better part of a year, but the true end of my hope arrived at dawn when the siege of Lonemount was five months deep.

It was a cold and bitter morning following a long, even more bitterly cold night. The kind of cold that bit into bones and chewed away at the will of those suffering through it.

An ill omen for the coming winter that such a deep chill was already stealing through the fortress’s stone walls. The heating spells and firewood that would normally be burned to keep it at bay were in precious short supply.

Five months into the siege and almost everything was in short supply. Including hale and whole trained soldiers to keep watch, which was why I was up on the battlements on the long end of the small hours watch to see the new arrivals ride up.

Pale, golden light crept over the surrounding peaks and fell upon the blood-red uniforms of the Esteran envoys as they galloped up the thin winding mountain road. They were welcomed into the military camp that grew like an unchecked, scarlet blight at the base of Lonemount’s moss covered walls.

“Can you see who arrived, my lady?” Darin asked. My partner for the small watch hours blushed and ducked his head. “My apologies, Mage-General Siveray.”

He’d been a page in Ahnlia’s royal court before it burned and used my court title on reflex. Something that clearly embarrassed him in his new military role.

As though any of that mattered now.

“I gave you leave to call me Varsa, Darin.” I flashed him a smile that hopefully looked less tired than I felt. “Titles are suspended when you’ve shared a dinner of roasted rat.”

The young man—Lady of Sorrows, help me, far too young for the duties he’d taken on—smiled back, but his chin lifted. “Can you see them, Mage-General?”

“Let me check.” I lifted a hand to my eyes and cast a simple far-sight spell.

I bent the air before my eyes until the tiny figures at the mountain’s base seemed close and clear. Twisting the thin morning light to my will took a greater effort than it should, but I didn’t need to dip into my dwindling reserves for long.

The stony, stern-featured face conversing with the camp’s commander was one I knew well.

I lowered my hand and tried to keep the unease that settled in my belly off my face. “That is Mage-Captain Kelsor.”

Darin’s eyes widened. “The Bastard Emperor’s attack dog?”

“The head of Emperor Revan’s personal guard, yes,” I corrected him absently.

Lorenz Kelsor was more than a mere attack dog. He was dangerous, loyal, and trusted, but that wasn’t what concerned me. Kelsor’s keen eyes missed little and his habit of silence often lead his enemies to underestimate his intelligence.

Worse still, he was one of the most gifted combat-mages I knew. In my current condition I didn’t like my chances in a fight with him.

“We should kill him.” Darin’s eyes narrowed and his lips pulled back from his teeth. His thin hands tightened on the bow he was holding. Half-starved fourteen year old stripling or not, the boy looked suddenly dangerous. “Strike him down where he stands, my lady. A lightning bolt, the same way you killed the Esteran crown prince. Do it for Ahnlia. For King Levith, Seven keep his soul.”

Levi.

Deep sorrow echoed like a funeral bell in the hollow of my chest. I ignored it and the pangs of guilt and shame that followed quickly after.

A thousand mistakes had led us to this point, and many of them were mine. But there was no reward at the end of that mental road and the Seven knew I’d been down it often enough before.

We were at war.

My king was dead.

My country all but fallen.

On reflex, my hand came to rest on the hilt of my sword. The amplifying power of Apoidea’s mage-steel beneath my fingers made me itch to try the bolt Darin had suggested.

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“Will you do it?” the boy asked, voice eager and gaze locked on where my hand gripped my sword. He was bloodthirsty in the face of dire consequences in the way of the young and battle-mad. In the way of those who had not spilled enough blood to know its cost.

Even so, it was more of a temptation than it should have been.

A part of me desperately wanted to watch Kelsor fall on Ahnlian soil. Even with our shared past. Even though bolts of elemental power were not my area of strength. Even if it would likely take what little power I had left and the rest of my life force besides.

It would almost be worth dying to strike a blow Revan would feel, and he would feel Kelsor’s loss.

Trust was rarer than mage-steel for an emperor.

“Mage-General?” Darin asked, excitement causing his high young voice to crack.

Slowly I released Apoidea’s hilt and took hold of the luck token that hung around my neck. The small skin-warmed pendant looked like a simple ring of gold holding a tarnished silver coin, but that coin was made of a metal far rarer and more costly than silver. It did not bear the mark of Ahnlia or Estera or any other country. My token bore the mark of a raised bee. The bee was both the symbol of my home and a reminder.

From a deep corner of my soul I heard an echo my father’s voice as he recited the motto of House Siveray, “Honor is found in service and it is an honor to serve.”

Almost every great mistake of my life had sprung from not holding true to those words.

“No, Darin,” I said, slowly, as I traced the familiar ridges of my bee with a thumb one final time before I let it fall. “Kelsor comes to negotiate with us under the protection of a herald. We must give him all the rights and courtesy an emissary is owed. As we’d want our people treated if the situation were reversed.”

“All our representatives are either dead or in here starving with us.” Darin glared down at the Esteran captain.

“Even so,” I said. “It would be a stain on Ahnlia’s honor to betray that trust.”

The boy’s too-hard, too-knowing gaze bored into me. “I’d trade my honor for some revenge, Mage-General. My family was in Free Haven when the Esterans took it.”

I was too weary to debate the ethics of war with Darin, and far, far too tired to explain the hidden current of politics that often flowed beneath. We were starved of news here, cut off from the rest of the kingdom and the progress of the war. Kelsor would have information, though how much we could trust what he’d tell us was another matter.

I set a hand to Darin’s shoulder and went with a broader truth. “I understand your feelings. Even so, honor is not something to hold cheaply. Once you give it away it is a difficult thing to gain back and I’ve seen too many good people eaten alive inside by its loss.”

Seven knew, I had an enough well-chewed corners myself.

“Believe me.” I squeezed his shoulder. “You do not want to become one of them.”

Darin flushed and lowered his eyes. “Yes, Mage-General.”

I let him go. “Now run and wake Lord Pym and Marshall Rendal. They’ll want to know about our visitor. And spread the word that there’s to be no hostilities taken against the Esteran envoy unless we give the order. Is that clear, soldier?”

“Yes, Mage-General.” Darin straightened, saluted, and left at a run.

With slow unhurried steps—the only kind I could make without the half-healed wound in my side protesting—I made my way through the fortress’s stone hallways to my bedchamber.

I’d begun to dread the sight of the room. Between the sharp ache from the wound in my side every time I lay down and the nightmares, I hadn’t slept well in weeks.

I set Apoidea aside and discarded the increasingly patchy fur cloak along with the many scavenged layers that I used to ward off the mountain’s early autumn chill.

For the first time in many months, I took my uniform from the wardrobe and laid it across the bed. The deep green spell-cloth wasn’t clean or worth much as protection now. The magics spun into the fabric had been stressed too hard and had faded. The silver leaves embroidered at collar and hem that had glittered proudly were dull.

Still it was less stiff with dirt, sweat, and blood than any of my other clothes. With water strictly rationed, clothes could not be cleaned. One of the smaller constant miseries of living life under siege.

Before dressing, I crossed to the small basin of water on the side of the room and washed myself as best I could with the stale dregs. I re-braided my damp hair with the quick soothing motions of long habit. Then I put on my uniform, adjusting the fit of the high collar across my throat and smoothing the knee-length fall of spell-cloth into place.

I inspected the result in the room’s small glass mirror.

A strange scarecrow of a woman stared back at me. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks sunken and the bones beneath her skin stood out startlingly sharp. Her grey eyes were bloodshot and her braided hair was thinner and had streaks of white in red-gold that hadn’t been there a few months ago. The coat and trousers of her uniform hung off her body like they had been sewn for someone with more flesh and muscle. At her collar, the Citadel’s white-gold cloud insignia and the twin silver, seven-pointed stars that marked her as a general in Ahnlia’s army glittered mockingly.

I looked like a cautionary tale of what would happen when a mage used too much magic with too little replenishment. The reason why withholding food from a captive magic-user was considered a war crime.

What would Kelsor see when he looked at me? An opponent starved and defeated or a lean and dangerous enemy?

Did I even know which I was anymore?

I considered the sword propped by the door for a long minute. If we decided to let Kelsor in—and it was all but a certainty that we would—bringing a weapon would be a breach of protocol. A custom intended to lower the mortality rate of messengers who bore bad news.

It was also one of those rights and privileges I’d defended to Darin less than half-an-hour ago.

Still, I’d rather live another month on roasted rat alone than face Kelsor without mage-steel close to hand. My much stained honor would have to be satisfied with only drawing my blade if he acted first.

Hypocrisy was much easier to swallow after months of hunger.

Matter decided, I buckled Apoidea to my hip. Carefully, I adjusted it into a position that would least bother my sore side. But even with the additional discomfort, the solid weight of it was as welcome and reassuring as a lover’s hand.

As properly prepared as I could manage, I headed for the counsel rooms and whatever grim news Revan’s envoy bore.