The second daybreak after Mydea’s departure found Aspyr in his glasshouse, the winds of winter and a slow, creeping hoarfrost warded off by the warming runes. His valet, Jorgan, was with him as usual, following in companionable silence while Aspyr flitted from row to row.

“This one’s still not holding water very well,” Aspyr noted. It was dry to his touch despite having been watered recently. He picked up the pot and set it aside.

“Shall I instruct the gardener to repot it with a new mix of soil?” Jorgan asked.

Aspyr shook his head. “No, I’ll see to it myself tomorrow.”

“As you say, my lord,” Jorgan said, setting the pot aside.

It had not been five days since Mydea held a feast to celebrate the Night of Nomos with those sworn to House Kolchis. Still many of those esteemed men and women, or their relatives, lingered behind the walls of Aigis to take his measure. It was to be expected really, yet Aspyr was ill at ease. No stranger was he to their schemes, not after what he and his sister went through whilst schooling at the Thalassian Athenaeum. The false flatteries and barbed words; “suggestions” and secrets so casually revealed as to make them a borrowed blade.

But that was just it.

It had always been him and his sister, working in tandem.

Grandmother remained a source of sage advice when it came to these matters, but her health was failing, and as for Father… his idea of diplomacy involved liberal quantities of force and fire.

It helped nothing that Father’s mood was foul of late, and with so many of their vassals being hosted in Aigis, Aspyr was thankful Kolchis had not yet been dragged into a blood feud or forced to behead his own father to appease some ally. For all that the hystors squabbled about the most minor matters beneath the sun, none of them would dispute that murdering one’s kin would be an inauspicious event so fresh to power.

As for addressing the cause, there was no balm to be had. He knew not what had transpired between Mydea and Father while he’d been attending court, but they disagreed. Enough that Mydea felt it necessary to seize Father’s notebook—and that could not have gone unnoticed, not for someone as meticulous as Aetos of Kolchis.

Jorgan cleared his throat lightly. “Lady Hermia approaches, my lord.”

His eyes snapped into focus on the cousin of Dame Rothston, a young woman, pale, with a heart-shaped face framed by her fiery red locks. She greeted him with a practiced curtsey.

“A surprise to see you at this hour, Lady Hermia. I hope you rested well?” Aspyr asked. The sun itself was still in the midst of rising.

“My stay has been most pleasant, Lord Aspyrtus,” Hermia said with a small smile. “I’ve been told that some sights in your garden are best seen at dawn.”

“I fear your efforts are for naught,” Aspyr said. “Those flowers do not bloom in winter.”

Her smile didn’t waver in the least. “I can’t claim to be learned in such matters, but perhaps you might enlighten me?”

Just as he opened his mouth to answer, a blur of movement caught the corner of his eye. Hystor Theios came scuttling over in his priestly robes, patches of snow making it a mottled white and silver that nearly blended with the landscape. “A message, my lord!” Theios declared as he entered the greenhouse, clothes remaining dry even as the snow melted off of him. “From Perasma.”

Aspyr did some quick calculations in his head, noting that Lord Pyli ought to have just arrived in his seat. “A message so soon?” he asked, glancing at the ground outside. Snow was piling ever higher, proving Mydea’s predictions of a fierce winter true. It could only mean one thing. Aspyr accepted the parchment, and pried off the stamped wax of a gray gate on green. The cursive script was written in a hurry, but it confirmed what he had suspected.

“The raids are beginning early this winter,” Aspyr said. He glanced at Hermia. “Do you ride well?”

“Passably, my lord,” she answered, biting her lip.

“Then I shall have to bother you to send a message to Lord Eminent Pleonexia,” Aspyr said. Not that he expected any help to be forthcoming. Though a strong showing from his liege lord might weaken Kolchis’ own standing as a house external in the eyes of others, the truth was the Tuskar were far from the only concern House Pleonexia needed to balance.

“If possible, deliver it to him whilst court is in session.” His message was nothing more than a pointed reminder to his feudal overlord—and, more importantly, those in his court—of why exactly House Kolchis was made a house external.

Hermia smiled in understanding. “As you say, my lord.”

A dozen thoughts were already flitting through Aspyr’s head. He sighed. “Jorgan, it seems I must leave this business of repotting to the gardener after all.”

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“I’ll see it done, my lord,” Jorgan said, reliable as ever.

Without a command of silence from Aspyr, word that the seasonal raids had commenced spread quickly throughout the castle. By the time he sat to break fast that morning, the great hall was abuzz with conversation between the leading servants of Aigis and the present vassals of House Kolchis.

Father was noticeably absent, leaving the seat to Aspyr’s left empty, and none dared sit to his right where Mydea ought to have been.

“The cooks said Lord Aetos requested his meal be brought to his room,” Jorgan provided helpfully as he checked a basin of water a maidservant brought forward. Satisfied with the temperature and that the silver needle testing it hadn’t turned black from poison, Jorgan took the bowl into his own hands and offered it to Aspyr.

“Do you suppose the cause is his research or his rage?” Aspyr asked, washing off any lingering dirt from his arms.

“Both,” Jorgan answered.

Aspyr suspected the same.

Though barrels of juice and imported sugared drinks were brought out by the servants for today’s feast, no spirits were served. Even the lowliest servants understood it would do Kolchis no good to have inebriated knights for the ride north.

Aspyr cleared his throat, then projected his voice across the room with a dash of the wind magic House Kolchis prided itself on. “My lords and ladies,” Aspyr began, satisfied that the room quieted at his words, “as you may have heard by now, the Tuskar raids are upon us. We received word from Perasma early this morning that several warbands have been spotted already in their lands.”

“The savages are most eager this year,” said Lyle Lorne of Lone Stone.

“All the better for us!” his twin sister Leah said beside him. “I’d rather fight them now than deeper into winter.” Scattered murmurs of assent rose from the knights.

“If our enemies wish to blunder, we can oblige them,” Marshal Perdiccas added. “Give us the order to hunt them down, Lord Aspyr.”

“How soon might we depart?” Aspyr asked.

The stout marshal eyed the room, before answering, “If the lords and ladies present are willing, we can depart after noon. We ought to have enough mages at hand to rout any of the tribes, and more can be rallied as we head north. As for the supplies, they can be drawn from the winter provisions of the places we pass by.”

“We will have to make short work of the Tuskar, or suffer for it,” Captain Alexios said.

There was a lull, a silence as every eye landed on Aspyr for judgment. It was a silence Mydea would have cut through were she here, with words sharper than any sword, to instigate those present against Lord Eminent Pleonexia. What words she would have used were beyond him though.

“Lord Pyli of Perasma made mention in his letter that he and his son will ride with me,” Aspyr said at last. “It must be asked: are the rest of my lords and ladies willing?”

A roar of approval was his answer, coming first from the northern houses and the highland knights most under threat, then infecting those around them.

Had my sister not dealt with their dissent, Aspyr could not help but think, would they have answered so eagerly?

As the feasting drew to a close, Aspyr left the matter of organizing their ride in the experienced hands of Marshal Perdiccas. He’d served their house in this matter for many decades, when their mother still ruled and through the tenuous years after her passing. Delegation, as Mother wrote in her book, was a privilege of authority.

“Will Lord Aetos be joining the expedition, my lord?” Captain Alexios asked as the great hall’s ironwood doors swung shut behind them audibly.

“Do you suppose he’ll be of help given the mood that’s seized him?” Aspyr asked. It would be entirely self-defeating if Father torched the very farms they were supposed to protect. “Control has never been his strength.”

“It is not without risk,” Alexios admitted, “but your father remains a formidable warrior and a peerless mage. He has been the storm sheltering Aigis for many years, and we are departing with fewer mages than I’d like.”

While the gathered nobility and the castle’s guard and garrison were enough to form a sizable retinue, it was only a middling war host and far from the full muster of Aigis. Aspyr could not fault the captain of his personal guard for his caution. Yet, it might also send the wrong message to still be so reliant on his father now that he was two decades old and of age.

“Invite him to lead the rear as a reserve,” Aspyr decided as they arrived before his grandmother’s room. It was a position that would not see much fighting if things went well, and thus limit the harm he could do. “If nothing else, perhaps a few fights will bleed his frustrations some. Better that an acceptable target bear the brunt of it than letting him simmer.”

“As you will, Lord Aspyr,” Alexios said with a bow, before leaving.

Aspyr breathed out. Before he could knock on the door, a gust of wind ruffled through his hair like a warm pat on the head.

“Do come in already, Aspyr. At my age, unnecessary pleasantries are a luxury,” Grandmother said, voice hoarse and cracking.

He obeyed. “You’ve heard?”

“I may be half-deaf and half-dead, but that doesn’t mean I am without eyes and ears in my own home.” She tilted her head towards the maid by her side. “You’re a man grown now, but this will be the first venture you’ll lead.”

“Mydea and I thought about this day many a time while studying in the Thalassian Athenaeum,” Aspyr said, “but in the end, it’s not how we imagined it would be.”

“Men may propose, but the gods dispose,” Grandmother said. “Are you confident?”

Aspyr thought for a moment, before giving his honest answer. “It will not be easy.”

“Good,” Grandmother said, her lips forming into a wry, wormy smile. “The Tuskar have a thousand tricks and treacheries, and though they keep no writings, the mythuselah have long memories. You are untested, and your vassals will doubt you at every setback. Reality is rarely as simple as the stories make them out to be.”

She took a raspy breath, before continuing, “I say all of this not to dishearten you, but to temper your spirit. I have seen too many of my kin drunk on stories and blinded by easy glory. Kolchis cannot afford another coffin.”

“I hear your words,” Aspyr said solemnly.

Grandmother nodded. “Go, but go cautiously.”