"So... it would appear that I was right about the Commander, after all." Queen Amaridae let out a heavy breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her carefully constructed image had been allowed to collapse, and she was slouched in the enormous iron throne on which she sat. The dais was situated in the middle of an equally enormous receiving chamber, in which our voices now echoed, for it was entirely empty save for the two of us.

"I would have been greatly surprised were you wrong," I said evenly. "You would not have expended so much effort had you the slightest doubt in your convictions."

She snorted, a rather un-queenly sound, particularly for a woman in her forties. "After five years of nothing, I was beginning to wonder. Not a single soul had anything to give you. They were surprisingly adept at clearing away their evidence, and mucking up your abilities at summoning a viable soul."

"I don't believe he thought his son capable of making such a stupid mistake as targeting one of his friends," I said. "I genuinely don't think he was capable of thinking ill of his son at all."

"What do you make of the entire fiasco?"

"It reeks of the gods and their meddling."

She raised her eyes and stared at me, one eyebrow arching into her hairline. "You're speaking of the girl."

"That, and more."

"I find that odd to hear such steadfastness coming from one so staunchly opposed to our gods."

"If one is to shut the gods out of their life as entirely as I have, one must be willing to keep tabs on them and know the signs of their inevitable meddling. I have not survived two centuries by pretending the gods don't exist, nor by ignoring them."

"So what other signs are you seeing?"

I rubbed my temples, before looking up to meet her eyes once more. Amaridae was perhaps one of two people, now, who could look me in the eyes, Tally being the other. I know she saw the spirits and ghosts of her past- I saw them, too, heard the whispering of her failures in my ears- but she was one of the only ones who stood ready to receive their damnations.

And she had many.

"The girl was magically there, at the hands of a criminal we have been investigating for years," I said bluntly. "She is, coincidentally, from the same time period as I am, yet I have never once crossed paths with her in nigh on two centuries. Her patron is Abyssus, the god on whose toes I must so often step, and she appears only after I have been so thoroughly shackled into workings of the mortal realm, where I cannot escape, nor run, nor avoid the will of the gods."

The corner of her mouth twitched. "I believe I can see where you are going with this. There is, indeed, no such thing as coincidences in our lives."

"What will you do with the girl?"

Amaridae threw up her hands. "What can I do with her? When the Church of the Abyss finds out about her, they'll be foaming at the mouth to get their hands on her. Tally must stay here, in the castle, with you, until we know more about her." She paused. "Do you have any concern for her mannerisms?"

"No, none."

She tapped her fingers on the table, her frown deepening. Forties or no, Amaridae was considered one of the most beautiful women in all of Iradion, a feat and a half, because many of the countries she communicated with tended to agree. Together as we were in the receiving room, there were significantly more lines in her tired face than the public might ever see... but the moment those doors opened, she'd be at her most perfect posture, her golden locks piled up with nary a free-flying hair out of place, sitting coiled atop her head beneath an enormous, elaborate crown, her face smoothed and prim and perfect.

I had, ironically, become a place of comfort, because she could order me to say nothing of how she looked or spoke, and she knew that her commands were iron clad. I could not utter a word of anything she said in my confidence, so long as the manacles about my wrists remained in place, and so long as she wished it so.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I admit," Amaridae said, "I am confused. At two centuries, you speak and act like someone who has lived that long and experienced all of it, trials and tribulations and all. Tally... Tally speaks, looks, and acts like a child." She shook her head. "A two hundred year old child?"

"Immortality is a fickle thing," I said. "For me, my body remains untouched by time, but my mind expands. Tally may be utterly frozen in time and space- it depends entirely on the full will of Abyssus, her patron, and frankly, we will not know what all of that entails until long after it has come to pass."

Amaridae sighed. "We have too little information to do much more with Tally, other than to allow her to stay with us and to keep an eye on her."

"As that is also her wish, that is not too difficult to arrange."

"Now, we must speak on the subject of your new commanding officer."

I blanched. "You're keeping me with the Inquisition?"

"Did you think I would do otherwise?" Amaridae raised an eyebrow. "Crime has plummeted, now that you're working with the Inquisition. The ability to summon the dead and simply ask them 'Who killed you' is perhaps one of the greatest boons this city has had in... a very long time."

"Fabulous," I muttered. "And what power-obsessed nobleman will you place in charge of me, now, Your Majesty?"

"I know when you're especially angry with me," she said, chuckling. "I can feel it."

"Good."

Amaridae sighed, trying and almost failing to keep from rubbing her eyes. "I do not have the luxury of giving you easy assignments, Isolde. You are a tool that I can use, and regardless of what I know of you, I must use all of my tools, so long as I have them, for the good of my people."

I crossed my arms and said nothing.

"Very well." Amaridae sat up straight, threw her shoulders back, and suddenly resumed her Queenly facade. "I command the doors to be open."

Her voice carried in a way it hadn't before, and the massive dark-wood doors set into the black-stone arch that rose hundreds of feet above us in an imposing display of power shook and groaned as they were pushed wide. Standing beyond was a single figure, waiting on the threshold, flanked by the royal guards.

The new master for the curbed witch.

"Enter, Captain Glaive."

Glaive, I thought idly. I should like to guess at which weapon he has mastered above all others.

There was the sound of heavy, armored footfalls as the man named Glaive stepped into the great hall. No other sound was heard as he continued to step forward, down the length of the room, ignoring the stretching awkwardness between all three of us. No other sound could be heard until, at last, he came to stand before Queen Amaridae, dropping into a neat, heavy bow that pointedly ignoring my presence.

He had thick, dirty blonde locks that fell in a messy, sweat-soaked curtain past his neck. A metal helmet was tucked under one arm, and he wore heavy mail. A massive glaive- his namesake- was belted to his back, two battles axes strapped to his waist, and a massive tower shield sat underneath the polearm. I could see a quiver of training crossbow bolts strapped, forgotten, to one calf.

He's talented, I thought, looking him up and down. The art of combat is his passion, if he is trained in all of that and then looking to add the crossbow to his list of accomplishments.

"I have had my eye on the Captain for a while, now," Amaridae said. "Isolde. I wish to know your opinion of him, and to see if you agree with my decision."

Glaive had the decency to look confused. It was clear, suddenly, that he had no idea why he was there with us, though he spared me no look at all, his eyes trained entirely on Amaridae's face. She gestured in my direction, and finally, he looked my way, freezing when his eyes locked on mine.

He was young, though not much younger than Amaridae. Perhaps his early thirties.

Spirits crowded around him, the ghosts of his past, the tales of his failures. A woman with a head that wobbled on the base of her neck sobbed as she drifted between us, crying over a failure to save her family from murderous bandits; a man scorched nearly to dust moaned about a burning mill that Glaive had been unable to save from brigands.

A mysterious spirit of a small girl floated ever in the background, her pale, ghostly eyes on mine... but she said nothing. Her tales, it seemed, were kept close to her, for now.

Glaive's failures were few and far between compared to most, but it didn't stop the ones he did have from revealing themselves to me... and in my eyes, to him. He flinched as each spirit passed and presented the bits and pieces of his past, seen to me in the space between the mortal plane and the non-reality of the Otherworld.

"So far," I said, examining the pain in his eyes and looking for any sort of misdirection, "he is clear." The taste of his failures was filled with bitter regret; there were no hauntings here in which grieved souls desperately tried to reveal the hidden truth of a heavy-handed knight. His failures were personal, and he regretted each and every one.

"Excellent," Amaridae said lightly, tilting her head toward him. "Captain. Congratulations are in order. You are now the Commander of the Inquisition, and by extension, my Guardian over the Necromancer."