Markeba absently sipped at her cider. It was too sweet, as it always was when Freyr was away. Freyr's father, Merak, was an able old man, despite how close he was to finding the hidden door, but he lacked attentiveness to an annoying degree. Freyr liked her cider excessively sweet, so Merak made cider excessively sweet, no matter who it was he made it for. Most days, Markeba would call him back and demand he make another batch with far less honey, but the note in her hand was commanding her full attention.

"Merak," she said.

"Yes, Dread Highness?" he shouted from the porter's house.

Markeba rolled her eyes and sighed. She quietly voiced her ire at Freyr for having yet another child. Each time she plopped another brat on the floor, Markeba was subject to the subpar service of her aging father, forced to see how much further the man's wits had whithered since the last time.

"Your duties are done for the day. I'll see to my own needs. You should go to the Sea of Clay and search for tourmaline to give your new granddaughter."

He came from the house, alive and alert as a boy of thirty. "Are you certain, Dread Highness?"

Now he comes out. "I'm certain."

His eyes lit brighter than Yalla, and he nearly skipped towards the door to the outer terrace of the palace.

"Actually, Merak, I need one last thing, since you've so much energy in you."

His head lowered and he came to a dead halt. "Of course, Dread Highness. What do you need?"

"Fetch me a roll of windscript, a messenger's stylus, and five strong thrushes."

The half worthless old man brightened a little, reminding Markeba of a pale sunrise on a dreary winter day, like the days she knew in Nirmo. "Certainly, Dread Highness. I won't be more than a moment."

"Make sure my father sees you, with the thrushes."

His head lowered again, and his sagging grey eyes darted furtively. "But, the king is meeting with the Chieftains. The thrush cages are directly above the Splendour Dome, nowhere near the Warding Hall."

"Then you'll have to think of some excuse to offer him for being there. Perhaps your age will suffice. Men of your years are often found wandering witlessly about with no knowledge of where they meant to be."

"But, your father, he'll be angry."

She sighed. "He adores you, Merak. Why, I've no idea, but you're his most beloved servant. So go. He may bark at you, but nothing more. Do this thing for me, just as I've bid, and then you're free to play with the other children. Run along, now. It's half past noontide, and I want to send my birds abroad before evenfall."

"Will it take you so long to scratch a few notes, Dread Highness? If you're in a hurry, why have me tread the span of the Grand Bazaar just to look a fool to my king and the chieftains?"

"Merak, I find myself remembering a plethora of tedious and strenuous errands I meant to have done today."

"Yes, Dread Highness."

The old man turned and heaved himself laboriously out of Markeba's solar. She tightened her hand into a fist, let her anger towards Merak flare and subside, then rose and walked through the door to the terrace. Below her were the Proving Pits. The sounds of savagery would fill the air that night, coming from both the pits and the stands. She was enjoying the silence of the early day. Her father found his strength in his warriors and chieftains, and the rabid applause of the people when he dazzled them with grand splendours. She found her strength in solitude, in the peace of loneliness, where she could think, undisturbed by others' needs or wants of her.

She looked down at the proving pits and watched the wartenders scrubbing vainly at the bloodstains on the floor. At most they'd fade them to a lighter red, but there was no removing the sins of yesterday. Markeba thought grimly that if they truly wished to mask the sight of blood, they'd do better to simply host more provings, so that the floors of the pits would be covered entirely. But her kin had recently lost more than enough blood for her taste, and she would be absent from the fighting tonight. The young upstart in Primus had spoiled her appetite for dwarven violence.

She looked up from the pits at the empty space that sprawled before her. The southern wing of the Cerulean Spire looked on the miles of sand that lay like a blanket over the leagues between Mount Eber and the Araad. Beyond that blanket was the richest stretch of shoreline of all the Nazrad. There lie Amani-of-the-sky, palace of Nandi, White Queen of the Araad. That's where the true enemy lies. If only Grar had the courage to face the veiled nature of his dear old friend, he might be sitting his throne right now, chastising his new wedbrother over some trifling scheme gone awry. Alas, he was blind to the ambitions he fostered in Nandi, and now he lies on the ground in chains, listening to his wife's screams as the drow flog her naked.

"Nandi," Markeba said aloud. "The White Queen, they call you, but your heart is even blacker than your marvelous hide." Markeba remembered her first trip to the Araad. Her father came with strong and brutal soldiers to offer for a pittance from her famous golden horde. Having sold the last of Heth's precious mannarim stores to her only months before, he quickly offered up his own people's blood for more of the wealth he'd become drunk on. Markeba was too young to understand any of these things back then. She merely looked in wonder at the palace and its people. She especially loved the rich teak skin of the Araadani. And they were every one a giant, or giantess, tall people with broad faces and full lips, who spoke in voices deeper than Thrond's mines. Her young eyes feasted on the brilliant contrast of the bangles of bright gold and silver the Araadani wore on their ink black skin, and the argent and aqua marine gemstones they encrusted their servants' noses and cheeks with. The slaves that worked the streets and wharves and riverside docks wore tattoos to mark their status, but those indentured to the White Queen and her courtiers had their very bodies gilded.

The bronze skinned Janissi astounded her as well. Their men were built like her own kin's men; massively sinewed and broad shouldered, only they were tall as the Araadani, and their voices thundered with an almost vulgar vigor. Their women were lusty and curvacious, with hair down to their ankles and rings of black ivory in their navels and nostrils. The only occupation the Jannissi had, if any, was war, and they were the finest of all the warriors Jannis Araad boasted.

Until her father brought them his first legion of contractors, that is. Those men had been chosen from the finest families, and from birth were tempered in the forges of punishment and brutality. They were the perfect combination of disciplined and savage, and their hunger for violence was nothing short of monstrous. Nandi had purchased them at first out of pity, but every year hence she bought new legions out of desire. No one fought like Heth's contractors, no one.

And now she owns well nigh all of them, for the next ten years at least. The few companies contracted elsewhere were far from home or the kingdoms of their cousins, far from where they could be of use to their own kin. But her father didn't care. So long as he had a golden udder to suck golden milk from he was happy. If the dwarves of Konistra were to survive the coming storm, it would be by Markeba's hand, not Karli's.

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A cool wind sailed upward from the desert and lifted her golden hair off her tan shoulders. Her scant gown of light silk covered just enough to provide passable modesty, and even still she felt sweat trickling down the small of her back. It was always hot in Heth, even in the ember months. She envied the heavy storm clouds she spied northward from the telescope atop the Mountain of Sapphires.

The drow even slew Magni. They'll pay the steepest price for that. The lenses Heth had left after the starfall were better than none, but Magni had been king over all the Eyes of the Dwarves. Without it, they would have to depend on Cloud Hammer to spy the coming of the Great Year, and the Starmancers there were more in love with their secrets than her father was with Nandi's gold.

Markeba had no love for gold, nor anything else meant to be spent. Her craving was for things that lasted. Five birds, she'd asked for. One would be sent to Old Tusk, to inform the Bleeding Bull that the Black Sun was rising. Another would go to the Rambasl, where the Second Son was quietly massing troops under the command of his attack dog, Cermeus the Thrice Feared. Cermeus was a simple man with no ambition beyond surviving the day, and only knew the letters of the Provosan tongue, and nothing of the Erestic code she'd be writing his king in. Derrion would receive her letter discreetly, if a bit late. Markeba was certain he knew of the attack on Thrond, being so close, but he would know nothing of how Heth planned to respond unless she messaged him before her father. Merak's interruption would not only stall Karli's moot with the Chieftains, but he'd spend a good hour debating with them how she knew of the attack before he did. That would buy her time. His thrushes likely wouldn't take wing till morning, and hers would be well on their way by then.

But she needed time to choose her words. The message to Derrion would be simple enough, as would her warning to Mars'Akka. Both those men wore their truths on their foreheads. The challenge when dealing with the Second Son or the Red Bull was never in guessing their plans, but in surviving them. She would simply speak in plain terms, telling them clearly what she needed, wanted, and had to offer.

But the others, they necessitated more subtlety. The note to Cloud Hammer would have to express sorrow for their cousins' plight, and an offer of aid with just enough reluctance to not seem like she was after something, plus a comment or two regarding the destruction of Magni that hinted at the dire need for them to share their knowledge of the Red Wolf's Howl with her and her father. She would have to be careful in her wording of the letter, as the Starmancers of Cloud Hammer would have to believe it their idea to share their observations of the new star, or else they would never agree.

After that would be the letter to Arn Tommalt of Ronehelm, who thought himself the leader of the snail paced plans to overthrow High King Talan Tharne. Arn would repeat everything she wrote to the coup's true leader, Brott Ysling, as he always did. Brott would counsel Arn to ignore the letter, saying being caught between Nirmo and Eruhal prevented them from meddling in any southron affairs, then covertly send his brother Yorn south with the Domhain to keep Primus from striking any further north. The trick would be to express her angle to Brott without revealing it to Arn. She knew the Shieldlanders to be suspicious by nature. Although, if they were truly a cautious people, they'd never have gone to bed with the Shadow Moors. The Moorsmen wore the viper headed scourge as their badge for a reason. Tread softly, Arn. I know I mean to.

The most difficult note would be the one to Primus. Markeba's mother had warned Matron Odessi time and again not to underestimate Alidya. House Sek'remen rose too high too quick, and young scorpions were the deadliest. She would have to craft her letter to Odessi as if it were to Alidya, much as her letter to Brott must look like a letter to Arn. But her letter to the drow empress would need to be one of praise, with the architecture of her kingdom's readiness to move deeply hidden in its text. She had no need to worry over Odessi's ability to decipher her meaning, as she was easily the cleverest of the conspirators. The danger lay with Alydia, for she was deeply suspicious of everyone around her, being a daughter of Primus, and she was clever too. Indeed, she was clever as Brott Ysling, secretive as the Starmancers of Cloud Hammer, and as dangerous in war as Derrion or Mars'Akka.

Markeba thought very hard. The early revealing of the Black Sun's hidden weapon was not anticipated. What it was Markeba herself could only guess. Her informant had said 'the bow was notched too soon', and nothing more. Alydia showed more than just her boldness by changing her plan; she showed that she was not one to be led on a leash. It was her game now, as Markeba's mother warned it would be. Now it was on her to do her mother's part. She had listened raptly to every word from her mother's rotting throat as the ceti eels ate her alive from inside. Every moment of her life was now devoted to her mother's vengeance.

There was much her mother was unable to impart, sadly, including the nature of Primus's new weapon. That she'd been loth to divulge. 'An ancient secret. Forgotten, but never lost. I hope you never learn any more.' That was all her mother would say on the matter. From there she went to rambling about the Black Garden, and then she fainted from the pain.

Markeba doubted her mother's wisdom in revealing the true aim of the Risen to her. She was young, only just turned forty two, and had nowhere near the experience in the Risen's deadly games as her mother. "Fear not," Urum Brann had written her, "your mother chose well. You are a cunning creature. What you lack in years you make up for with instinct. Trust your gut, Markeba. It's what I do, when experience fails me and plans go awry. Nothing can be predicted, only hoped for and responded to."

Well, she felt in her gut that Alydia was too dangerous, and that her safest course was to find a new ally, and trust Odessi to handle the scorpion child on her own. Markeba would need someone concerned with dwarven interests, who could hide from the eyes of the drow, and had everything to gain from joining the game, but also the sharp wits and hard heart needed to play it well. The answer came to her with the next cool breeze. It rose from the wide blanket of velvet dun and swept her hair into the sweltering summer haze, wending its way north and east around the walls of her father's mountain of white marble and blue satin.

With the answer came a flush of red blood into her cheeks, and a quickening of her steely heart. Her new ally would be a man with wits as sharp as obsidian, and a heart of smouldering coals. And, most thrilling to her of all, though it made him almost as dangerous to her as Alydia, he was the man she secretly loved.

She had the letters already written in her mind by the time Merak returned. She quickly penned the first four notes, sent the thrushes, then bid Merak return the last bird. He whinged about the day wearing on, and that it would be too late to look for tourmaline in the Sea of Clay. She told him he may as well stay overnight in the porter's house, to which he whinged more, then she left quickly for the warpens. The fifth letter would need to be delivered in person, as its recipient would soon be on the move.

The roads through the royal city were crowded with eager spectators hungry for death. Hundreds were scampering to arrive early for seats closer to the killing. Heth's provings were not the sort of child's play they toyed with in Thrond. In their provings the last warrior breathing won. The result of such barbarism was a mean and crude people who only played at civility, and only when such a ruse profited them. While this made her kingdom a disgusting place to mingle in, it provided her with a limitless supply of capable servants with no qualms about doing anything she asked and swearing they hadn't, so long as she paid them more than anyone else could afford to.

She chose three of the best and most corrupt contractors from her father's premier legion. They were meant for the Araad, but he'd been stalling their delivery until he knew what Alydia's play would be. Herob, Khezad, and Tul all had the hungriest looks in their eyes. They craved an end to the doldrums of waiting on her father's whim, and were game for any sort of action. She'd used each of them before for numerous unsavory tasks, and each time was satisfied with both their skill and discretion.

"I leave it to you to decide who commands," she told them, "but know I'll draw and quarter all of you if you fail in your work." They all bowed earnestly, as their princess was not known to make idle threats.

"Tul will lead," said Herob. Tul and Khezad nodded without hesitation. She gave Herob the note, then went by secret alleys from the warpens to the proving pits. Before going to her seat by her father, she stole away to a high tower, riding one of their kingdom's few function ohr-tempuses, and borrowed a spyglass from the watchman there. She smiled when she found the trail of dust left by her henchmens' wargoats.

The provings were gory and dull, and the people roared their lust for carnage as loudly and predictably as ever. She spent half the evening with her head on her father's shoulder, and the other half eating grapes fed to her by her stepmother's nephew. He was an insufferable bore, but handsome enough that she didn't mind letting him flirt with her on occasion. When the provings ended she went to her bedchamber, had another porter bring her a flagon of properly spiced cider, and as she drank she looked through the crystal dome over her bed and asked the Red Wolf's Howl to light the way for her three henchman.

She'd given them no small task. It was a long road north, and they had the challenge of evading the spies Urum Brann would doubtless have scouring the Coldwood and High Alden's hollow hills. There would be battles to evade as well, as the gnolls and elves tore at each other's throats. Then they would have to find her cousins, which should be the one simple part of their mission, knowing Ror. Cousin Ragefist, she always called him. He would tear a swath through every acre of land between Gwynd and Solstice till he found his quarry. Then, when Valung was dead and the doomed were under Ror's thrall, her three henchmen would have their chance to approach cousin Halfur unnoticed by the others. Then he would have her note, and she would have her new ally.