Relief washed through my body as we entered the Winter Palace. All the concerns and dangers bound up in Luka’s death and the ambitions of the others could wait at least a few hours while the King in Black deliberated and laid plans. I was home, as comfortable in these halls as in my own skin. Shira relaxed next to me. This was no home to her, but at least it was safety compared to the treacherous streets of Sanctum and the danger of predation by undead. She knew my word was law within the Winter Palace and our accord afforded her my protection.

Haven awaited near the door like a faithful hound, bowing his head at my approach. His claw wounds from Luka had already vanished, visible only as faint and quickly fading scars. Undeath certainly had its advantages. “Welcome home, my lady.”

I smiled despite the weight of the day. “Thank you, Haven.”

He held out my signet ring to me, no doubt returned by Melody. “Everything in the house is in order and all affairs that can be settled today are settled. I took the liberty of preparing a guest room and a bath for Master Anstydir. He anticipated that you would wish to speak to him in the morning. I thought it prudent to keep dinner warm for you and our guest.” His button-like eyes turned towards Shira meaningfully before returning his gaze to my face. “Also, Ember requested your attention when you wish to give it.”

I took the ring and slipped it back on my finger. Sometimes I wanted to hug the wight and never release him. “My gratitude. Would you kindly show Shira to dinner? I will join her when I have finished speaking with Ember.”

Haven bowed his head and padded off towards the solar and adjoining kitchen with Shira on his heels, while I turned on my heel and headed for the armory. The broad set of double doors leading out to the drilling square were open and on the far side, I could see the glow of the furnace in her workshop, half left open to the air. It was cut of the same spellwrought stone as the palace, but not so different in construction from the average village blacksmith’s quarters. I would have given Ember a kingdom’s ransom for her knowledge and expertise, but she preferred only to have a place where she could work her art undisturbed. The smithy stood alone, surrounded by the palace walls, but directly adjoining no other building. She liked her privacy.

No hammer blows rang out from the smithy as I approached, a sign that Ember was on to more delicate work or perhaps resting. I knocked on the door before entering, drumming a familiar pattern with my knuckles so she wouldn’t hurl a tool at me, thinking I was some intruder.

“Ladyship.” The greeting was coarse and simple a few moments after I stepped in, like the surface of pumice, and delayed by distraction. “Just about finished.”

Ember sat at her workbench, laboring away at whetstones and steel. I knew when to give her space, taking a seat on a simple, heat-scarred stool by the door. The forge was still burning, enough to make the room almost unbearably warm even with large slats in the wall allowing for air flow, molten salt slowly cooling in one of her quench troughs. While magic I knew almost nothing of, I could rattle off the name of every tool in the workshop, and appreciate the artistry to every choice she made.

The smith was my height while sitting, stripped down to a light shirt, light pants, and a heavy leather apron scarred from use. Burns were not a concern to her: her skin was a dull, ashen gray except for the delicate threads of golden veins in her wrists and neck, hair the color of charcoal left in a messy knot at the back of her neck. The elemental fire magic that had shaped her ancestry left her with eyes glowing like stirred coals. Her craggy features scrunched with focus as she worked, breath steaming out of her body with each puff.

Like Haven, Ember had been with me since the beginning. The only difference was that I had lost no part of her, something I would forever be grateful for.

“Ain’t often you ask me for one of ‘em.”

I smiled a little and crossed my arms as she finished up, wiping oil off the blade using a rag. “Is that a complaint?”

She snorted, steam curling up from her nose. “Hardly. Just sayin’. Good thin’ the measures weren’t yours, or I’d have worried for Woe.”

“The day I put aside my mother’s blade is the day they put me in the ground.”

“Mebbe so, Ladyship,” she acknowledged, wiping down her project. There was a frank practicality to Ember that I had always adored. She set aside the blade, clearly meant for one of my guards by the emblem on the strong of the blade, and pulled over a piece of charcoal and a sheet of parchment normally used to test the edge of blades. “Specifics?”

“A longsword in my people’s style,” I said, approaching to stand beside her. “It is a gift.”

Ember furrowed her brow as she started a design. “Not big, from the height and span you gave.”

“No. She will need technique and speed. I need a blade that will not break. I was also hoping you still had some of the azha’ael ore left for an alloyed steel.”

The smith looked up from her work, startled. “A gift an’ a half! That ore took Luka’s folk eight months to smuggle out of Suzail, Ladyship. Elves don’t like parting with their starstone.”

I shrugged. “We can always acquire more. It has properties that would be useful to someone who can learn magic.”

Ember narrowed her eyes. “This is for that slip o’ a mute, ain’t it? What’s to stop her from plunging it through you in your sleep, ey?”

“That would be quite the move.” I smiled faintly. “Do you think she’s that bold?”

The smith cocked an eyebrow at me. “I seem to recall another slip o’ a gel who barely said two words. She had no problem reshapin’ the world at the point of a sword.”

I crossed my arms and leaned against the worktable. “She wants to learn.”

“An’ it don’t figure in that there’s a why that you might not like?” Ember huffed thoughtfully, exhaling a stream of steam at me. “It’s been a long time, Ladyship. They don’t make ‘em like you no more.”

“I am not asking her to be me, nor to serve or agree with anything I have done. If she wishes to kill me, she is welcome to try. Whatever she does with the skills I give her, it will be her choice. If you don’t want to make the sword for her, Ember, you are by no means obliged to.”

Ember picked up the piece of charcoal again, studying my expression thoughtfully. She shook her head after a few seconds. “Stubborn as a rented mule.”

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I smiled faintly. “Worse.”

“True ‘nough.” Ember drew a long, perfectly straight line to the length of Shira’s measurements for a proper blade on her parchment. “S’pose it takes that to do what you do. So tell me ‘bout the mute.”

I uncrossed my arms, approaching to stand at Ember’s shoulder as she began her sketching. “She observes a great deal more than she lets on. It’s obvious in lessons that she’s paying more attention than Vex gives her credit for. I think the oversight is due to her passivity, but with some work, she could easily turn that into baiting an enemy to make a mistake.”

“Mm. Magic?”

“So far, she has only demonstrated an aptitude for divination.” I watched as Ember profiled out a slender, wickedly tapered longsword with a single central fuller. “She’s Rusan, also.”

Once the blade was sketched out, Ember started on her design for the hilt. A simple crossguard and teardrop-shaped pommel with a grip at the right length completed out the basic outline. “I’ve a thought for an emblem, Ladyship.”

“Oh?” I arched an eyebrow at Ember.

“Rusans still reckon spiders are seers.”

I smiled faintly. “Appropriate for her waiting and watching as well. How long will it take you to finish it?”

Ember sucked her lower lip between her teeth thoughtfully, looking from the design to the piles of ore and iron sand in the back of her forge. “Starstone’s a bugger to work with, even blended. Two weeks at best, Ladyship.”

“Thank you, Ember. I appreciate you indulging me.” I gave the smith a deep bow of my head. “There is no one else I would trust with this.”

“Question, Ladyship.” Once I’d gestured for her to speak, she forged ahead. “What’s her name? The mute, I mean.”

“Shira.”

“She a pretty thin'?”

I frowned slightly at Ember, whose eyes seemed calculating, even if gentle. “I don’t understand the reason for the question.”

Ember shrugged. “Just wonderin'.”

I knew when the smith was being obtuse, but I wasn’t going to fight her on it. At least, not now. “Varys certainly thought so. Thank you for your time, Ember. I’ll leave you to your work.”

She bowed respectfully and I departed for the solar, where dinner was set at the small table. Shira had already started eating by the time I arrived. The fare tonight was more my people in style: roast venison on the bone with a root vegetable stew and fresh baked sourdough bread. Sanctum had no growing season or wild game, but enough magic that it didn’t matter. Any food could be conjured in the kitchens. The only downside was once the mind knew it wasn’t the real thing, the flavors seemed to fade a little.

Shira looked up warily when I approached.

“If it offends you, I will dine elsewhere.” I figured the gesture of courtesy wouldn’t be amiss, well aware that my presence probably still turned her stomach.

Shira shook her head and flicked her fingers. I do not object.

“Very well.” I pulled out a chair and sat down, shoulder still aching from Riyd’s love-tap. A meal and a night’s sleep followed by a long soak in hot water sounded like heaven. “I assumed you would have preferred more distance. Breaking bread with the devil seems out of character for a priestess.”

Shira looked down at her food, expression hardening. So is becoming a weapon, she signed.

I tore off a piece of bread and ladled some of the stew into a bowl. “A sword is a weapon. A person is something else altogether.”

And what is the difference?

“A blade cannot think, cannot choose, cannot feel. It is an extension of its wielder’s will.”

Shira looked back up at me, eyes piercing. And you are the King in Black’s sword.

“I have the power to choose, just as you do.” My words kept the frosty indifference I had long worn as an armor around my heart, but I felt the comment as the jab she no doubt intended it to be. “Something you have benefited from directly.”

Yet you do such evil and feel nothing, all because He willed it. How can I think you anything but steel?

“Are we so different?” I challenged, resting my forearms against the table as I leaned forward. “After all, at least I have use of my tongue. You let a goddess and her myopic peons muzzle you in more ways than one.”

Shira’s eyes flashed. I chose my vows out of devotion, she signed, scowling openly at me. I do not expect the devil to understand loyalty.

It wouldn’t have normally stung me, but I was tired, grieving Luka in my own way, and still simmering with annoyance about Varys. I slammed my left hand down on the table as a fist, voice tight and controlled as I tried to pretend I couldn’t feel the way the malformed band of gold dug into the palm of my hand. “Do not presume to tell me what I know nothing of,” I spat, rising to my feet. Before she could flinch away again or look to her own defense, I turned away. “It betrays your own ignorance.”

I strode out of the solar, more for her comfort than my own. My temper calmed slightly as I strode down the halls towards my quarters.

“She is young,” Melody said from behind me as I reached the doorway to my room. “And a stranger still.”

I blew out a sigh, recognizing the gentle reproach without being challenged by it. “You think I was too harsh,” I said, turning to face her.

The spy was holding a tea tray, two cups already poured. “I think you’re hurting,” Melody corrected gently. “Tea?”

I opened the door to my room and gestured for her to step in. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Melody seemed untroubled by the sharpness in my tone, leading the way with the tray. “You never do.” She settled the tea set on the low table by the window in the living room portion of my private quarters. “I am sorry, Aleyr.”

“You were not responsible for any of it.” I knelt on the thick rug and looked down at the tea. I really didn’t feel like talking, but Melody had a gift for coaxing words out of people. It made her an effective spy and an frustratingly talented confidante.

“We will all miss him.”

I gave Luka’s memory my full attention for a minute. Melody was right: I would miss him. Perhaps not machinations or being pulled into disputes between the fangwardens, but Luka had always been one of the few who appreciated the long view, who cared about things other than himself. I would miss the smell of wet wolf that followed him, the harsh bark of his laughter, the dependability and calm following wherever he went. Luka understood, in a way few others could, what the King in Black meant to me. He knew what it felt like to love so deeply that the world could burn, so long as his beloved smiled.

“I remember when Redda died,” Melody said softly, as if she knew exactly where my mind had gone. “You nursed him through a pain no one else could understand.”

“We used to sit up talking and drinking until dawn.” It ached to know I would never have the chance again. “I suppose that counts for something.” I looked down at the cup of tea. As much as I knew I needed to keep my wits about me, the temptation to ask for something stronger was there. I picked up the small cup and lifted it slightly. “Luka, I hope wherever you are, your sorrows are over.” A lump started to form in my throat, but I swallowed it down. “Rest well, old friend.”