For the rest of the afternoon, Eva and Anne continued to ride together in awkward silence, their carriage clattering down the country lane at a reasonable pace.

Meanwhile, somewhere up ahead, Agis, Sebastian, and Ylyndar rode swiftly on strong horses, laughing together at the joy of such speed.

And somewhere behind all of them, another figure followed, silent as a shadow, unnoticed as a gathering storm cloud, fixed in its terrible purpose.

And even further behind that, back in the capital city, Corvina was sitting hunched over a pile of paperwork, glasses on, smoking a cigarette.

The sudden disappearance of the Crown Prince was obviously going to cause a stir in high society, regardless of the circumstances behind it. Which meant a lot of extra work for Corvina.

It had taken her a few hours just to calm down the Emperor, who had been furious to hear that Sebastian had left town without his permission. He wanted to send guards to chase down Sebastian’s hunting party and bring him home immediately.

Corvina had needed to talk herself in circles to eventually bring him around.

Perhaps time away from the city is just what he needs to help him mellow out and cause fewer scandals. Besides, do you really want him around anyway? Isn’t it better to have him out of the way? Now you won’t have to worry so much about what he’s getting up to. He was already embarrassing you with the way he was seen to be close to the Saintess. This will give people time to forget about that and adjust to our new alliance with the church. Etc, etc.

“Alright, you’ve made your point, repeatedly,” grumbled the Emperor. “But perhaps you should postpone your trip to Longren. I’m not sure I want both of my children out of the city at the same time.”

It had taken two more hours to convince him to allow her to go anyway, emphasizing how important the work she was planning to do was for the expansion of the empire.

“If you feel lonely while we’re gone, you could always take your meals with the Grand Duke,” Corvina had suggested at one point. “After all, regardless of the status of our engagement, he has always considered you a second father figure, after his own father’s untimely death.”

This particular suggestion had the added benefit of being something Marshal would absolutely hate. It was one of the few moments in her day that Corvina had actually enjoyed.

With the Emperor finally pacified, Corvina had moved on to other aspects of the social fall out, strategically sending out notes to various members of high society in order to control the general narrative and prevent any unforeseen or undesirable rumors from spreading.

And on top of all of that, she still had to deal with some of the aftermath of the new alliance between the church and the imperial family, and there were still preparations to be made for her trip to Longren.

There was a knock on the office door and Ulrich came in carrying another stack of papers.

“These were just delivered for you,” he said.

Corvina sat back in her chair, taking a deep drag of her cigarette. “You can put those there,” she said, indicating one section of her desk. “And these are ready to go,” she added, pointing to another pile of papers. “Be sure to tip the courier well. The poor boy’s been running around doing a month’s worth of work in an afternoon.”

“So have you,” said Ulrich, placing down one pile and picking up the other. “Shouldn’t you take a break, maybe get something to eat?”

“I can't, I don’t have time,” said Corvina. She sighed and removed her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Do you think Anne even realizes how much work goes into this kind of political scheming? Or does she think it all happens by magic?” Corvina let out a sort of sardonic half-laugh and added, “Although I supposed Anne is used to people magically making things work out in her favor in the background without her noticing.”

“That’s not very generous of you to say,” said Ulrich.

“I’m not in a very generous mood,” said Corvina.

“Except towards the courier,” said Ulrich.

“That’s different.” Corvina put her glasses back on. “The courier is just trying to do his job, he hasn’t done anything wrong..”

“And Anne has?” Ulrich looked at his niece for a moment, and then set the papers he was holding back down and sat across from Corvina. “You know, we don’t actually have any evidence to prove for certain that Sister Eva is faking the miracles of the Saintess,” said Ulrich. “Which is, I believe, why you didn’t want to tell the Saintess about your suspicions just yet. It’s not very fair to hold her lack of knowledge against her when you choose not to tell her things. Especially considering...”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Corvina, who was now leaning her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand, looked at Ulrich. “Did Helen tell you about my argument with Anne then?”

“She may have mentioned it in passing,” he said.

“Do you also think the way I do things is wrong, then?” said Corvina.

“Not necessarily,” said Ulrich. “You’ve lived a very precarious life and you’ve been through a lot. You’ve learned to be secretive as a way to protect yourself, and it’s worked. It’s kept you alive. That said…”

Corvina had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes?” she prompted.

“It’s a very lonely way to live,” said Ulrich. “When you see yourself as a social and political chess master then it means on some level you view even your closest allies as game pieces—tools to use in your grand schemes. Those of us who have cared about you up until now, none of us mind if you use us this way. We’re happy to help you out any way we can. But it’s nearly impossible to have a relationship on equal terms with someone if you can’t find a way past that mode of thinking. Your mother—“

Ulrich stopped speaking suddenly.

“What about my mother?” asked Corvina.

Ulrich smiled sadly. “Never mind,” he said. “That’s a story for another time. I only meant to say that… you don’t have to be fully honest with everyone all of the time, but it might not be such a bad thing to be more open with at least one person. Even if that carries risks.”

Corvina reached out to her ashtray, tapping her cigarette to let the burnt end fall off. Her mind was heavy with thoughts she didn’t have the time or energy to give as much attention to as they required.

There was another knock on the office door, and Helen poked her head in this time. “My lady,” she said, with a curtsy. “Lady Nia has arrived to speak with you.”

“Show her in,” said Corvina.

Ulrich stood and picked up the stack of papers that needed to go out. “I’ll take my leave now, then,” he said with a bow. He smiled at Corvina and added a quick “Hang in there,” before turning and following Helen out the door.

A few short minutes later Helen returned with Nia in tow. Nia was wearing a white tunic shirt tucked into a pair of high-waisted black trousers. She gave a cool salute and then, before Corvina could even greet her back, slung a large leather satchel off of her shoulder and onto the desk with a heavy thud.

“Absolutely stuffed full of cigarettes,” said Nia. “That ought to tide you over on your trip.”

“You’re a life saver,” said Corvina. She could hardly work up the energy to sound like she meant it, although she did mean it, very sincerely.

“Always happy to help,” said Nia, sitting down in the chair and crossing one leg over the other in a nonchalant fashion.

Corvina sighed, tucking the satchel underneath her desk. “Nia, do you think I’m wrong to keep secrets the way I do?”

“Oh no, not at all,” said Nia. “You know I love keeping secrets. And not just for practical purposes either, I just hate anyone knowing anything about me. In my ideal world you wouldn’t even know my name, and you’re probably my closest friend.”

Corvina snorted.

“It doesn’t really matter how I feel, though,” said Nia. “Just because I’m fine with secrets it doesn’t mean the Saintess is suddenly going to feel any less bad about you hiding things from her. Eventually you’re going to have to decide what you care about more, being right, or fixing your friendship with Anne.”

Corvina took a final drag from her shrinking cigarette. “What did you want to talk to me about anyway?” she asked, bluntly. “What was so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

“Ironically, I actually came to tell you a secret,” said Nia. “Although it’s not my own. What do you know about Eva Coris?”

“I suspect a lot more than I know,” said Corvina. “What I know is that she’s a foundling who grew up with Anne in the church in Longren. The two of them are inseparable childhood friends. She holds a disproportionate amount of power in the church due to her close relationship with the Saintess. She seems to have some sort of unofficial mentor/mentee relationship with the Bishop herself. Why, what have you learned?”

“It’s quite likely that Eva may have… stronger feelings towards the Saintess than simple childhood friendship,” said Nia.

Corvina, who up until now had had her mind scattered in all sorts of different directions, suddenly focused all of her attention on this conversation.

“How do you know this?” Corvina asked.

Nia tapped her sunglasses.

Corvina was one of the very few people alive who knew the full extent of the power of Nia’s sunglasses.

Corvina nodded. “What exactly do you mean by stronger feelings?”

“It’s less like friendship and more like… obsession,” said Nia.

Corvina raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by obsession?”

Nia thought back to that morning.

Generally, Nia’s sunglasses gave her the ability to see a sort of visual representation of distortions of the truth in people’s speech. This didn’t apply just to outright lies, but any intentional twisting of reality. Crucially, it did have to be intentional. If someone said something they fully believed, then no distortion would be visible, even if they were entirely wrong about what they were saying.

On the other hand, in rare cases where someone did tell an outright lie which directly contradicted their real feelings, and they had a strong thought pattern behind the lie that could illustrate their real truth, Nia could actually see floating text in the air to illustrate the difference between their words and their thoughts.

Over the years Nia had become good at asking leading questions, steering people into telling more direct lies, increasing the chances that she would catch a glimpse of the truth.

Even then it was extremely rare.

Even then she had never seen an outpouring of truth as clear and overwhelming as Eva’s had been.

Nia had asked Eva why she ran the rebellion, what her true goal was, and Eva had responded:

“Because I care about justice for the common people, of course.”

But out of her mouth Nia had seen text pouring out, revealing another pattern of thought. Text so bright and busy and overwhelming that it had soon overtaken Nia’s vision altogether, blocking out everything else.

Anne. Anne. For Anne. It’s all for Anne. Everything for Anne. Only Anne. Anne’s happiness. Make Anne happy. Nothing else is important. Everything for Anne. Anne. Anne. Only Anne. Make everything perfect for Anne. Only Anne.

Back in the present, Nia contemplated how best to describe what she had seen in a way Corvina would understand.

“Let’s just say she reminds me of my mother,” said Nia.