The dysrhythmic clacks of cartwheels repeatedly broke Hilma’s train of thought, her mind scattered and disorganized.

This went horribly. What the fuck is wrong with Cocco Doll? Why is he hiring Six Arms? What could possibly be that bad?

She was riding back to her manor, jostling side to side in the cabin with every new stone the wheels struck in the road below. This was a new cart, she having ditched her old one in a city warehouse on the off chance it could be traced back to her. Given that she was crunched for coin, it was sparse, with no internal furnishing besides bare wooden benches, and lacking dampeners in the undercarriage to absorb the bumps in the road. The ride was miserable; with a particularly violent lurch, Hilma was sent onto her side.

“Domina tutus es?”

“Valeo, valeo… Fuck.”

The man who sat across from her nodded, straightening himself in his seat. This exchange did not occur in the tongue of the Kingdom; rather, in Imperial. Hilma had hired a worker team out of Baharuth, "Mortua Viperarum": three bladesmen, a pyromancer, and a skulk. All were ex-army, and that rugged essence of men who had dragged themselves through a decade of dispossessions, deforcements, and decimations dripped off them. Aside from the man in the cabin, the remaining two swordsmen had been ordered to vanguard and tail her cart at a distance, with the skulk and wizard sent to track the movements of the Blue Roses, reporting their position every two-hours. The man sat across from her was the team's leader, a veteran by the name of Luca Belloc. Their hiring was a calculated expense, a bet that a group untied to the Kingdom wouldn’t create noise when placed under her employ. If her enemy really was Baharuth, then the point was moot; but if they were - as she suspected - entirely based in Re-Estize, the chance of rumors on the matter reaching their ears was slim to none.

I can’t imagine what could cause him to need Zero. I don’t think the Blue Roses hit any of his bases recently. The brothel in the city, maybe? “A woman who was supposed to be eliminated,” an escaped slave? That would explain his urgency - “send a man over right away” and all - but you can just hire any silver-a-standard assassin for that. She must be under the protection of someone already, someone he thinks Six Arms is necessary to challenge. Shit, she must be in Lakyus’s care then. Just how exposed is he by her? He’s desperate.

Doll’s request was foreboding. She had no love for the man, but to see his work buckle entirely from an external campaign was a terrifying experience. It could happen to her. It was happening to her. Last night proved that.

They have the bait; they have to have it! Fuck, I wish they would have just taken it rather than killing the wizard and razing the whole place, but at least they have the list. Seven locations. They’ll hit one soon.

Hilma had made ten copies of the same note, then had them placed at growing locations of hers around the country. Inscribing one base, hideout, or establishment from every other division, she hoped her opponents would see it for the bargain it was and accept it, using the next month or so to strike those targets instead of her own bases. This would give Hilma time; time to turn round and face the Blue Roses, or failing that, time to get out of dodge.

Of all the spots in the city, the compound is the best place to end them. Pikemen on the grounds themselves, archers and casters on the roof; bait them into the courtyard, exhaust their resources methodically in a slow fight, tire them out; when they make to retreat, deploy six arms. Even if those useless bastards couldn’t kill Stronoff, they’d be able to bury those bitches who-

“Domina, 'Blue Roses' Valencia sunt.”

“Serva me missae.”

The message spell undid, the link snapped off at the source.

As if on cue. They’ve gone to the palace to crack the message. I can confirm, then, that’s where they go to process intelligence. Whom they’re meeting is still a mystery, though. I’m sure the records hold this was for a visit with the princess. It’s not Theiern - at least if it is, he’s holding his cards so tightly to his chest I haven’t found a hint of his activities. As such, it can’t be any of the Marshals, not Helgrave, or any of the Lieutenant-Marshals Lazzak, Rolland, or Hueg; none of them attend the palace frequently enough. Vellen is in Boullope’s pocket, and while I could see him working against me, Lakyus and company did foil his plans. It’s not Ramposa himself, is it? He would certainly take action against us, but he wouldn’t handle that himself; he’d pass it to Vellen, or to Urovana, who would then pass it to Theiern, whom I've already ruled out. Zanac? He always had a witty streak, but this feels slightly above him. He’s a second prince who’s yet to do significant campaigning, I don’t see why he’d start with fighting criminals now. At this rate, it might as well be Renner herself.

She felt another sharp lurch as her cart was dragged out of the mud and onto paved road - the meeting location of the Eight Fingers council nestled deep in the outer slums of Re-Estize. This route was scorched into Hilma's mind, and by this jerk alone, she knew exactly where she was. It wasn't the main east-west thoroughfare, rather, a sub-arterial road that led to it; as such, that it had been paved at all was through the advocacy of Princess Renner. It was an odd moment of serendipity for Hilma, and in its wake, she felt a growing sense of unease.

What if it is Renner?

The moment hung, Hilma struggling to dismiss the thought. Often, her intuition would guide her to dismiss frivolous ideas before she could actually divine why they were incorrect, a sensation at the back of her head that told her what she was considering was absurd. She did not experience this now - no forewarning, no hilarity. She felt all at once gripped by a cool feeling; the steady knowledge that she had missed the obvious.

I always perceived her as dull… or have I?

Worse feelings came; the realization that she had merely parroted the opinions of others, rather than develop her own.

Her policies always had some sense to them, even when they impede operations for me. Had her proposal to pave the highways and patrol them passed - even with losses to inspections - I would probably have broken even; any above-board merchants would have made profits. Why did I dismiss her? Rumors from the nobility. They hate her. She's part of the setup for half their jokes about House Vaiself, and a punchline for the rest.

The cart came to a halt, Hilma sliding forward slightly in her seat. They had arrived at the main road, the rider waiting to turn into it. Noises filtered in muffled; clacks of other carts, the sounds of other hooves beating against the stone; the babblings of merchants and the chatter of citizens.

The maids’ talk really does suggest she's an idiot, though, unable to soothsay the basics… but it’s not like I haven’t acted stupid in the past to hide my own intentions. I've killed many a man that way, and at least a few women. If she is witty, why does she act, well, witless in her personal life? Kicks? Possible, or maybe some other machination. Hm, likely the latter. Is she the stalker breathing down my neck?

Hilma cocked her head slightly, gently rapping her fingers against the wooden benches. This question felt stranger than the last, an ask that meant not only embracing the words previous, but also completely rejecting the nobility’s opinions.

Invert the problem. What prevents her from being their sixth member? Time? Plenty of it between her duties, no. Intelligence? Assuming no. Access to funds? No. Debts? None I know about. Privacy? Maid talk has it she's independent in her personal life, even does her own makeup - I don't even do that, no. Lack of contact with Blue Roses? Fuck, no. There really are no problems, are there? Then, okay, when did they meet?

Hilma retailed the dates the Blue Roses had visited the palace, then immediately realized the pointlessness of doing so. She had cross-referenced the Blue Roses meetings at the palace with now well over a dozen individuals, having long since memorized those dates from sheer repetition. Of course, Renner had been every one of those meetings, considering she was the cover. Hilma felt profoundly stupid.

I've spent months weaving conspiracies from the fucking air, only to dismiss the simplest answer? How? Lords above, I’ve doomed myself over, haven’t I?

She felt a sudden discomfort in her own skin, a deep awareness of the qualia that enveloped her. The air was soaked, muggy and hot. Turbid breaths lodged in her mouth, never cooling however much she breathed. The space was tight, the cart’s size shrinking. It was dark, a weaker light casting the space in sicklier color. She had no cushions upon which to rest, no soft things to cling to. Worse, she had already burned through her supply of pipeweed earlier in a nervous fit. She had an urge to get out, a desire to walk out the door to the carriage and run. She knew this would do nothing, the heat of the day outside would only be greater than that inside the carriage; the light, even if not scorching, would set her ablaze in a world of unpleasant sensation. Intense things came to mind then: images of herself being spotted, identified by her enemy. Lo, new dreads not simply of divisional collapse, but her death as well.

Calm down. Just, calm down. It's not as if I have any hard evidence, do I? I have no letters, no talk from the maids to suggest this; I don’t have any reports from Boullope or Vellen. It’s just intuition at this point. Just… intuition. Does she have motive? With her moniker, perhaps so. Is this why Barbro went into a mad fit of rage to kill her that night? I can’t see him knowing that and not leaking that somehow, he doesn’t have enough of a mind to- Wait, Gods above, Keveleos rescued her that night!

Hilma’s lips split with a sharp inhale.

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They’re in league!? They would have had time together alone. How did I miss that? Was that a coincidence or was it planned on either side? Keveleos obviously knew something was going to happen, that’s why he was there to protect his marks. By the will of the six, that’s why he asked me to cut off payments to Barbro. It was on her demand, wasn’t it? There’s only one thing that could be.

“Domina?”

Hilma realized her shock had worked its way into her body-language, Luca having taken note. The vehicle had yet to resume its motion, and she realized that this presented an opportunity. She tried to find words and failed, before flicking her finger to the sliding window behind his head.

Is she shooting for the crown? With everything she’s proposed, she’d have a base of support among the people - them and the merchants: roads between cities funded by the crown, subsidies to Adventurers Guild patrols on those roads, it’s all just a ploy for public love. We’re to be a political victory for her. It would be Queen Theiere the first.

Luca nodded, then turned round in his seat and slid the window open. The back of the driver stiffened as it came into view, his head bobbing down a moment later to look at her.

“Piter, don’t take me home. The Six Arms compound, posthaste.”

“You want me to take the thoroughfare?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to pass the central inspection point.”

“We’re not merchant traffic, they won't stop us. Luca-”

“Viri mei sequentur.”

“Gratias.”

I don’t see how she could get it. She wants to seize the throne. Her brothers need to be out of the way - rather, chased down and killed. Can she do that without sparking war? I wouldn’t see how, but she obviously believes she can. God, a princess running her own war against Eight Fingers. Lords above, how did I end on the wrong side of a woman like her?

What do I do? For one, abandon Barbro entirely. No more coin, no more contact at all. He wouldn't dare expose us to the authorities either, bogarting or begrudging our men in the public eye is a possibility. Throw my support behind any of the remaining four remaining Ryles. She’s out of the question, but her second brother is the best choice beyond her - Vena and Lulara are out of the political game entirely. Shame, I’m sure it would be easier to entrap one of them in a vice. It doesn’t matter. I can win this.

The cart once again began to move, pulling forward in a gentle leftward curve.

I need her dead. I need her dead now.

—

[41st Year of Foresai, Lower Fire Month, Day 3]

Renner absentmindedly flicked her nails. She was decidedly displeased.

No matter what I do, I can’t seem to explain how this happened.

Her eyes were on the scattered vellum in front of her; nine separate sheets, each filled front and back with her penmanship, covered her table. Neat rows of formulae lined each, breaking at the edge of each page and wrapping around the next row down with a flair. Much of it was step by step, the littlest of additions, summations, or products accounted for in the margins. That it was in such detail spoke to the depths of her frustration, every step she typically leapt past exactingly recorded.

None of this math resolves. Rather, all of it resolves, but my answer is incorrect.

After two long months of research, her delve into magical theory was finally coming to an end. She, as was her wont, had taken the whole subject from its fundamentals, building up from pure magic theory rather than instruction and practice. With basic knowledge of theory, she had then moved onto general forays in the schools of divination, enchantment, and illusion - and shallower explorations of the rest. There were a few subjects of note: defense against remote viewing, counterscrying, the spying of illusions, identification of messengers, the evasion of charms, and shirking of domination. This was all to defeat arcane tradecraft, and though this was the ostensible extent of her purpose, she had looked for a culminating example for some time - a capstone problem to tie her fields of study together.

The Vampiric Crisis seemed to offer just that; out of all the tales of Momon “The Black” and the “Beautiful Princess” Nabe, their defeat of Honyopenyoko through use of a spell-sealing crystal provided a suitably interesting tale and a downright exotic arcane theory problem. As the story went, when summoned to the guild in E-Rantel, he had spoken that the vampire - almost certainly a lord of its kind - was undefeatable by all but him, and when challenged on this point, had produced an iridescent azure crystal in response. This, when inspected by the master of the city’s Magicians’ guild, was confirmed - true to Momon’s word - to hold magic of the eighth tier.

Perhaps this scale is above my understanding. It’s a terrifying thing, isn’t it? Even the servants of the Gods never had such power. That subject is a springtrap of its own.

Darkness, along with another team named Kralgra, had thus ventured northward, seeking and doing battle with the vampire in the depths of the woods. Only Darkness returned, and when the guild auditors arrived at the site to evaluate Momon’s performance, found a sight that defied reason. A section of the woods had not simply been mangled in the contest, but obliterated, the ground not simply scorched, but turned to sand. What spell the crystal actually held was never something Momon elaborated on, though he did later say that the destruction had been as a result of the crystal itself, rather than the cast stored inside. Thus, Renner had endeavored to demonstrate how such an event had come to pass.

To review. Identify the magical effect, describe the effect, find its power, solve for the actual efficiency - though it's just the full hundred percent here - then calculate the enthalpy of disintegration.

From a practice perspective, the problem included everything. Arcane statics, discretized step theory, dynamic genesis, and crystallography. What the crystal was made of Renner had no way of knowing, but transmutation effects required certain outsets in mana, things she could use to then solve for the magical densities of the material itself. Doing this had given her a reasonable figure, yet, when she attempted to then apply this to a crystalline lattice, she hit a wall.

As far as these calculations go, there’s absolutely no reason for the magical outpouring. My numbers are all wrong. There should be a mana surplus for the effect, and I simply cannot find one. Tease them as I might, I can’t get these equations to produce an exomanatic result. It's as if the decomposition wasn’t self-sustaining, rather, driven by the release of the spell; put simply, it’s as if the crystal never exploded at all. I suppose with the eighth tier of magic, anything is possible. Perhaps all these equations strain and fall apart with such surges of power. Ah, Chardelon, you’re worthless at magic, aren’t you?

Her annoyance at the math finally bit back, Renner feeling her frustration being turned round to aim inward.

I wonder what it would be like to have power like that. The ability to apparate things; sling bolts of lightning. I can’t imagine it. Same goes for bladecraft, adventuring, or anything of the sort. I’m unfit to be a heroine, no? Evileye said I did possess a flame, though it was vanishingly dim. It’s an impossibility.

She sighed, collected her efforts, and shoved them aside. Her bitterness at the subject was only half-sincere, the rest spurred on not by genuine dismay at her inability, but an older, more personal fear. Boredom came to her in stages, each a new platform for discomforts, dysphonies, and dysphorias. She had since blown past the kind that kept her in her chair, eyes watching motes of dust caught in beams of sunlight float to the ground. Renner was in that sharp sort of pain, the tailings of a day that had long since seized and ground itself to pieces. She was no longer bored, she was in agony.

I want him here.

If given time, she could steel herself to his absence. It was a discomforting sensation, knowing he would be away for the next few hours, but it was something she was capable of bearing. However, such a sudden leave with a badly delayed return only served to aggravate the point.

Gagaran and Evileye must have dragged him on some adventure.

After a surprisingly enjoyable morning - concerns about Tina notwithstanding - the day had seen fit to drag on in a particularly languid way. Lakyus had decided to employ Climb as a footman to convey a message to Gagaran and Evileye to return to their improvised warehouse-cross-keep, this in preparation for additional action. It was a wholly sensible choice, neither of the visiting Blue Roses having the ability to cast Message at a level high enough to breach castle defenses, and the palace guards being too compromised for such a task. Renner had expected it to take, at most, to midday. Instead, it was nearly sunset, and he had yet to return.

I loathe this. Do not deny me knowledge of such things. Would it really be such a bother to link to me and say “Your Highness, we’re taking him riding training,” or something to that effect? It’s… it’s…

Black drippings stained her mind now, that gentle fear reminding her that she would not have him. The fear “she would not have” had been one of hers since childhood, the knowledge that all at once everything she had could be taken away, substituted, or replaced without her purview. That deep loneliness of a world where she was only seen, never listened to. Climb filled that void, and when she was with him, she could forget it. He had been gone long enough for that hollow to reopen, and she had gotten herself lodged deep within it. She struggled in the depths, desperately trying to drag herself up. She failed.

What if Zanac and Raeven refuse me? What then? Do I have a follow up action to take?

Renner expected herself to find some path forward immediately, some logical iteration of her previous plot to account for this failure. Her mind spun, yet produced no answer. The tension rose. Almost always, something obvious would leap out, a new path forward to take her toward her goal. That did not happen now. She was all at once overcome with the knowledge that she was three stories in the air and standing on nothing.

Could I… could I perhaps… no. I’m impotent. Still, after so much, I’m impotent. If they reject my offer, I could turn to no one. Anyone besides him, and I would be subject to the gales of my house and the factions. I would be swept by it, thrown into rocks, the claws of trees… the claws of Counts. I would find purchase there, but Climb would not come. Perhaps Jircniv if the nation is to be swept off its feet come autumn. No, I would have nothing to offer except my blood. I would be used to slake a blade, and lo would my end come.

I would slink away into the nothingness, never to be dredged again from that inviolate morass of minor nobles. The equinox will come, and my father, in his righteous sense of duty to his unmarried sixteen-year-old daughter will secure for her a future; one that will deny her her joy, yet be the best thing possible for her at her age. She would be sent spinning then into the bile, left to sink in the ooze, denied her… her love.

Why consider the nothingness when I can instead embrace the urblack? Would I be able to turn my hands against myself, or would I just shed away, dyeing a gully red with a slurry once named Renner. I wish to rot. I wish to distend, to warp, to fold in on myself like parchment tossed into a hearth. I wish to undo, to tear and sunder and rip and fray and shear and shatter and break and dash and dust and burn and burn and burn again and again until all that was once was me is cast to the wind along with the memory of the loss.

The Gods would reject me, but the Gods are dead, idolatries of the mind no less heinous than what keeps their images from being graven into stone or hewn in glass. I care nothing for their whims, their prancing and shaping of the world. Why mankind? Why not another? Why was I born amidst this sea? One as turbid, tumultuous, toxic as those who are alike in the form of their flesh to me? Why am I consanguineous to that which I am not alike to? Why am I forced to sit alongside them, to call them brother, sister, father, cousin? It’s an abomination, a base sin worse than the castings of the Demon Gods. Damn the world. Damn the kingdom. Damn it all to be rent, masticated, and torn to bits. Damn it all to-

A knock. Renner snapped herself back together as the door opened, brushing away what she could as she drew her face out of its neutral quiver. A maid walked in, taking no more than two steps in from the door before bowing and speaking.

“Your Highness, your bodyguard has returned. I am to report that he has done battle.”