Naltheme's colorless lips curved into a faint smile as she raised her glass of firewine, the ruby liquid still swirling slightly from the way she had turned it to catch the smell. "I cannot wait until Teth sees you. It will be a rare treat to see her envious for once."

I shrugged, as relaxed as I could be with the reek of blood in the air. Even in the entrance hall, the copper tang was omnipresent. "Envy is Teth's natural state of being."

"I suppose." Naltheme's smile widened into something approaching a grin at the sound of a door opening, a rare display of amusement from the normally emotion-sapped dark apprentice. "Lady Teth, how kind of you to grace us with your presence."

The vampire stalked over. Her smile was sharp and frozen as she looked me over, the barest suggestion of her fangs visible. "You simply must tell me your tailor's name, Aleyr. That dress is...incomparable."

I ran my fingers over the painted silk, tracing along the wyrm's fire as it spilled down my sleeve in silver detail. "Quite a compliment from our resident mistress of fashion." Wisdom with Teth was not to grate against her vanity. As much as Naltheme would enjoy goading her, the vampire was a significant danger, particularly with Hallen's elite units under her command. Much like with the fangwardens, a tipping of power or vengeful strike could damage the Eternal Kingdom.

Such a precarious balance.

Teth's smile broadened, showing her wicked canines in their full threatening glory. "And how diplomatic of the Frostborn."

Tension tightened in the air no matter how relaxed everyone seemed. It was indescribable, Teth's displeasure, more felt than heard or seen. "I have my moments," I said simply. "Shall we enter? It smells as though celebrations have already begun."

"And a wonderful surprise we have for you, Aleyr." Teth's dark eyes flashed with some joy a normal person would have shuddered at, as she gestured to the door to the dining hall.

Naltheme glanced at me, tipping one graceful eyebrow into a questioning posture. I knew what she was asking me: are we safe?

This time, my tone was considerably blander. "You know how I enjoy surprises."

"There is no ambush, Aleyr. Relax, enjoy yourself. I know I intend to," Teth said, releasing some of the tension. She still glanced again at my dress, gaze tracing across the opalescent eye of the silken wyrm. "Come."

The grand dining hall of Lord Rhandiir's estate was a vision of opulence, with grand vaulted ceilings graced by glittering chandeliers and his own personal banners in crimson and white: a fanged skull in honor of the King in Black—and of course his own vampiric self—on a field of red. The tables that stretched along the length of the mammoth room were broad, covered in enough squirming victims to feed a thousand spawn when only a few hundred were present, most relegated to the far end from their sires.

Every plate was gold, where visible beneath the fresh, wet blood that spilled over the dishes and onto the crisp white tablecloth. Rhandiir sat in a gilded, high-backed mahogany throne, filling his goblet from the gushing throat of a young man. He moved with the precise, flawless manners of a gentleman until the moment he simply widened the rip, tearing the captive's head from his shoulders and depositing it onto a plate beside him.

Varys was an absolute mess to the left of Rhandiir, crimson smeared across alabaster skin and spattered on his white hair. He had no such pretension as his sire, preferring to drink straight from a warm throat or a pulsing wrist.

I knew better than to let my emotions show on my face, as much as my lip tried to curl in distaste.

Rhandiir grinned when he saw me. "Lady Aleyr, how wonderful of you to join us! I was half convinced that you would neglect such a public appearance and hide in your fortress of solitude."

"That would be rather discourteous of me, as much as I enjoy my privacy." I gestured to Naltheme. "I even ensured that the Lady of Bones would pause her studies for an evening, just to join us."

"Quite the feat," Teth said with a sort of amusement, taking her place at Rhandiir's right hand.

I sat across the table from Rhandiir, Naltheme taking a seat beside me. She was no more squeamish than I, though I knew her mind had slipped into the fascination with death that marks all necromancers when she reached out and brushed her fingers along the cheek of the severed head. "Naltheme was very much a part of our victory. I thought it would be appropriate for her to be present."

"I could animate him for you. It might be amusing," the King in Black's apprentice offered casually.

Teth laughed and regarded the head. "I doubt he has anything riveting to say."

I glanced down the length of the table, noting an absence. "Is General Hallen in attendance?"

"Tardy, it would appear," Rhandiir said before taking a deep drink from his bloody goblet. "I suppose I should send for your dinner, ladies. I assume you would prefer not to share General Maric's meal, nor ours."

"No meat," Naltheme said, pursing her delicate lips.

"It fascinates me, your aversion to it," Teth said.

The apprentice seemed to settle into her seat more comfortably, though she eyed Teth with an almost vacant look. Her thoughts were largely elsewhere, perhaps still with the head, as usual. "I rather like animals and would prefer to avoid cannibalism. The shakes would simply destroy my sigil scribing."

Varys's bloodlust-glazed eyes finally seemed to register my presence. "Would you like a drink, Aleyr?" he said solicitously, tipping the young woman he was bleeding out towards me.

I picked up a plate just in time to catch the blood before it could hit the dress and ruin all the hard work Melody and her son had put into my apparel. "I don't share food."

"No taste for blood?" Varys grinned. "I wonder what rules a woman without that ambition."

Teth leaned forward on her elbows, watching eagerly. "Power is far sweeter, Varys."

I sighed and slid the plate towards him, then pushed the young woman's head away. "It does seem to be one of the few things a vampire can taste, certainly."

That answer sent one of Rhandiir's eyebrows creeping upwards. "If not power and not blood, what is there?"

"Not all motives need clarification," I said smoothly. "If you could read me like a book, Lord Rhandiir, I should think you would dispose of me out of boredom."

He chuckled, teeth flashing white against his dark skin. "And take away the King in Black's Beloved? I enjoy my unlife, Lady Frostborn."

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While only the King in Black and I fully understood our connection, despite Naltheme's best efforts to divine its nature, everyone had heard the story: so long as I lived, our sovereign would reign. The moment of my death would be his undoing, or so the myth said. My private nature did not incline me to divulge anything from our life together that was not already public knowledge. Some things were not for the leeches to know.

"So I was told of a surprise," I said, nodding to General Maric when he arrived at the table.

The wight lord picked up his knife and fork before helping himself to raw flesh discarded by the vampires. Naltheme was the newest to our ranks and found his excellent manners perhaps the most jarring, particularly given how abrasive he was in every other respect. Some old portion of him still clung to the formality and ritual of it.

"Are you acquainted with Salduil Haless?" Rhandiir seemed to linger on that hated name with an unusual satisfaction.

"Has any of us not experienced the frustration of the Rose Knight?" I countered. An apt name for a powerful fighter who had often been a thorn in our sides, Salduil was betrothed to Princess Lera, a connection between Rusa and the Principality of Suzail. Not that they needed much motivation to band together, with the omnipresent threat of undead ready to test the border and blight more of the land. I was not ignorant of the King in Black's effect on his territory.

Maric chuckled. "Did you know he was in attendance at the right flank of the battle?"

I sipped from my cup of wine. "I imagine that was most unpleasant for General Hallen."

"It was." The stiff voice of General Hallen reached me from behind as he passed, taking a seat at my left hand since Naltheme occupied my right. "He is the reason that charge failed."

Teth grinned. "Your hesitation to risk your own men had nothing to do with it, I suppose?" The tone was teasing, but there was a definite contempt underlying it.

Hallen looked far more haggard than I had last seen him, no longer animated by the spark of war that we shared. His gray hair was just long enough to seem shaggy, his normally clean-shaven chin covered in stubble. Even his doublet was rumpled and the collar undone. For a man who normally prided himself on military bearing, it was a sharp departure. I felt a pang of sympathy. The loss of his elite troops had struck him hard in his heart, harder than even I had expected. His stare at Teth burned with hate. "Perhaps it was your unwillingness to reinforce us."

"We are not here to quibble," Rhandiir said, waving a hand dismissively in a way guaranteed to infuriate both Teth and Hallen. "Rather, I would like to make a gift to our illustrious Lady Frostborn." He made a beckoning gesture and I turned in my seat.

Six guards approached, a prisoner in their middle bound so heavily with chains that his walk was a mere shuffle, not the graceful stride of a blade-dancer. Salduil had clearly seen better days, beaten and bloody from a flenser's knife. Runes glowed on the manacles, easily identifiable: they negated magic.

I let my eyes run over that familiar face. He had the thin, regal features of all elves, a delicate nose and mouth to compliment piercing eyes, still composed in absolute hatred of his guards and the creatures they served. He stood head and shoulders above me normally, but the chains kept him bowed like a servant. No wonder Rhandiir so enjoyed it.

"How kind of you to join us, Rose Knight," Teth said with a vicious enjoyment, her grin only growing as his lip curled in contempt.

Hallen practically growled beside me, reaching for his hip even though his sword was peacebonded by magic. I had chosen not to wear mine, and Naltheme hardly required one. The threat of this warrior was considerable, even chained as he was. If a single rune on those manacles failed, we would be facing devastating battle magic that surpassed even the wyrm-blooded's understanding of arcana.

I pushed my chair back and stood, coming to face Salduil. I searched his gaze with my own, hunting for any sign of fear. There was none. "Princess Lera must miss you dearly."

He spat, saliva striking my face. "As if you know anything of love," the elf hissed.

I reached back and picked up a napkin off the table, wiping off my face. "Rhandiir, what is the meaning of his presence?"

The vampire lord leaned back in his seat. "I thought him a fitting gift for you, Aleyr. An apology for our recent...friction. Surely your appetite for blood is not sated already by such a swift and short victory."

I considered this carefully. No doubt they meant for me to kill him. It was certainly tempting after more than a century of his careful planning thwarting many assaults, not to mention the cost it would be to Lera to lose some of her power base and a very competent general. However, it also presented an opportunity. There was someone at the table far more eager than I for revenge.

I picked up a table knife thoughtfully, testing the edge with care. It was serrated and sharp, meant to saw through meat. "A princely gift, Rhandiir. I trust I may do as I please with him?"

"Whatever you wish."

I turned, looking at General Hallen. "It occurs to me I am not the wronged party in either our friction or the battle," I said smoothly. "Allow me then to be a channel for that vengeance. Hallen, what do you want done to him?"

The general blinked in surprise before hardening again. "It was spellfire that he rained on my men," he said bitterly. "I would see him burn."

"Shall I assist?" Naltheme offered.

I shook my head. "General, I think perhaps I can provide you with a revenge even more satisfying than a simple pyre." I turned back to Salduil. "I think it is time we put an end to your particular brand of power."

Salduil sneered. "I know of you, Frostborn. You are a woman with a metal skin. Comprehension of the Art is utterly beyond you."

I shrugged. "I suppose that is correct, but I think your intelligence about me is somewhat neglected. You were fated to be a powerful battlemage, Salduil. It is all you have known, your purpose in life. You should know by now that I can break fate."

A sudden chill seemed to pass over Salduil, even as his curled lip remained. "A fantasy."

I closed my eyes for a split second, curling my left hand into a fist. While I had no such power over magic, I was bound to one who was the beginning and the end of it. My ring burned cold as midwinter ice on my finger. At least I was not forgotten.

What is your desire, my rose? I felt an icy, skeletal finger stroke my cheek, some echo of a tenderness that had once existed between us. All around, the lights on the chandeliers flickered and cold radiated out from me in a palpable aura. When I opened my eyes, I could see the dread in Salduil's expression shattering his implacable hatred.

"Wither." My voice was the ice of the lowest hell itself as I pressed my left hand against the elf's forehead, driving the ring directly against his bare flesh.

Salduil screamed, and the glyphs on his manacles died in a brilliant flash of life. The guards dropped their hold on his chains as the metal arced with power. Blackness spread through the veins beneath my hand, coursing through his body as his connection to his magic withered away into nothingness. He curled into himself like a hollow thing, sobbing as he sank to the ground. For him, the world became the ash and desolation of the Eternal Kingdom, robbed of all its color and beauty and connection.

"Is that more satisfactory, Hallen?" I asked, watching the wretched animal writhe in agony on the ground.

The general seemed to glow with pleasure, a satisfied grin spreading across his lips to see his hated enemy undone. "Oh, very much so. I wish his betrothed could see him now."

"Imprudent, to leave alive," I said before turning my eyes to Rhanduil. The vampire lord sat stock still, eyes narrowed. It was exceptionally rare for me to use that connection to the King in Black outside of battle. "Would you kindly release the peacebonding on Hallen's sword?"

"He was a gift for you, Aleyr," Rhandiir said, knocked enough out of his composure that he used my name.

"And I have done what I pleased with him." My voice sharpened. "If you would?"

He raised a hand and the enchanted silk holding Hallen's sword in its scabbard unraveled, falling to the floor.

The general drew his blade, staring down at the remnants of the Rose Knight. This was the enemy that had ruined Hallen, as far as the human was concerned. I could feel his pain and rage and sheer joy at the suffering as sympathetic echoes in my chest.

In one smooth movement, he drove his blade down into the elf's face, ruining those perfect features with a single blow. Salduil kept writhing and convulsing, but the blow killed him even if the body went on twitching. I knew I had given Hallen exactly what he wanted deep down, something that would no doubt endear me to him far more than any words of comfort ever could have. There was a certain irony that the opportunity had fallen from Rhandiir's lap.

I turned back to the table, brushing away the few droplets of blood that had splattered across my face. Mercifully, the dress was fine. "Now, shall we discuss something else?"