Chapter 48

It was a little pathetic, but Maryam ended up sitting at the bottom of the stargazing tower just so she could hear Tristan breathing.

The blanket pulled tight around her, back against the ladder, she listened as he slept in the nest above. He kept moving in his sleep, struggling, and had seemed almost afraid to close his eyes. Not that he’d had much of a choice: much as the Thirteenth would have liked to make something of his return, he’d been half-dead by the time the Krypteia released him. While he’d eaten ravenously, tearing through a roasted chicken and a pot of beans on his own before cleaning out two bowls of rice, he’d kept falling asleep in the middle of his meal.

It might have been funny, had they been less worried about him.

The physicians at the hospital had declared him fit, saying he’d suffered no physical harm beyond exhaustion, but Maryam knew better than to think someone could stay six days in a layer without a cost. As far as she and Hooks could tell his soul hadn’t been mangled, but in a way that only worried her more. Something had kept aether parasites off Tristan while he was down there.

That she couldn’t find anything wrong with his soul was a lot more likely to be because that entity had been subtle than benign.

And that wasn’t even counting the debacle with Fortuna. Maryam had drowned two offerings to the Lady of Long Odds since Tristan fell – offering bronze trinkets to the sea – in the hope they might reach the goddess wherever she was, but she had doubts. Anyone skilled enough to forge that dantesvara construct was unlikely to have left such a door open.

And there were now less than three weeks left before the line in the sand drawn by Andreu Claver’s calculations. At most six days of delve left, and the situation there had… degenerated. Even before the revenant raids had stopped the exploration cold, no crew had managed to reach the end of the Trench despite renewed efforts in the wake of Cao’s deal with the captains. It would take a miracle to reach the Repository in time, and Maryam suspected they’d already used up their stock of those for the year.

Tristan was not going to take that well.

Gods, even now that they weren’t desperately calling in favors and skipping classes to raid layer entrances the situation still somehow felt dire. Maryam rubbed the bridge of her nose, then pulled the blanket closer and leaned her head back against a rung. It would have been wiser to go to sleep, but the urge was eluding her. She just couldn’t unwind enough for it.

Forming out of the shadows to her left, her sister coalesced into a form tightly braided and wearing an Akelarre tunic. Maryam cocked an eyebrow at her.

“He’s fine, there’s nothing lurking around in the aether,” Hooks whispered. “And Sakkas is perched by the window like he’s keeping an eye on him.”

Maryam breathed out. The bird was not too clever for a magpie, or even impossibly large – there were outliers in every breed – but there was something unnatural about it. Whatever intellect clung to its body was clearly well inclined to the Thirteenth at large and Tristan in particular, but there was something… Maryam kept feeling like she’d missed a detail, or perhaps forgot it. Sakkas seemed bound to the cottage in some way, but they’d explored every nook and cranny of the place and there was no trace of a source for it anywhere.

“You should eat something,” Hooks told her. “Song left a plate out for you downstairs.”

Maryam grimaced, flicking a glance up. You won’t be falling asleep anytime soon, she told herself. Fill your belly some, instead of sitting there like a moonstruck fool. Having bullied herself into the decision, she pushed aside the blanket and got up with a groan. Padding through the room, she stopped to put on slippers over her bare feet and headed downstairs to the sensation of Hooks tracing vindicated smugness on the veil.

“You had best savor it,” Maryam muttered. “You get about one good idea a month, and we’re only the fifth.”

The ghost of sisterly impudence flipped her off and made a point of flowing through her as she went down the stairs. Maryam, as the eldest and wisest of the Khaimov sisterhood, refrained from pulling at her hair while she did as it would beneath her. It was going on the list, though.

Despite the late hour, some of the others were still downstairs.

Song was in the drawing room, sitting in her usual chair with next month’s Theology reading – the sixth and seventh chapters of Arquer’s ‘The Sea of Shapes’ – while Izel was kneading bread in the kitchen. Silver eyes flicked up as Maryam came in, questioning, but she shook her head. Nothing had gone wrong. She padded into the kitchen to find a plate of rice, salted fish and corn waiting for her under a delicately folded cloth, turning to shoot her friend a grateful look but finding Song was buried in her book again.

Hooks formed up right behind Song to startle her, but their captain was made of sterner stuff than that and instead mildly asked her if she would also like a copy of the book instead of reading over her shoulder.

Shaking her head ruefully, Maryam slid onto a stool and dug into her supper. Izel joined her after a bit, having finished his kneading, though like a cat dipping a paw he made sure to test her mood with some idle talk first. Hiding her amusement, she gestured for him to pull a stool.

“A little late for baking,” she said.

“I though a fresh loaf would start tomorrow off on a good note,” Izel told her. “A few slices with butter and honey tend to put a spring to one’s step.”

His gaze flicked up a little, and though he did not name Angharad he did not need to – it was well known she had by far the sweetest tooth of the Unluckies, when she allowed herself to indulge. Maryam hummed in approval, because Angharad could use the cheer. Not only had Tristan’s fall been eating away at her like acid this whole time, she was treating the entire Cai Wei affair like a personal failure. It probably didn’t help either that in two days she would be taking care of troublesome business for the Thirteenth.

Letting Izel’s chatter about different kinds of flour wash over as she ate, Maryam split her attention between the virtues of corn bread and vaguer musings.

It was amusing, in a way, that across the Thirteenth tensions had both dipped and risen in the last week, pulling them each their own way. Angharad had grown tense from the approach of the banquet of Malani nobleborn, knowing it would be on her head to neuter Nkosinathi Morcant for the Thirteenth, while Song’s eyes were already beyond that and gnawing away at the upcoming delving days. She hid the nerves better than Angharad, but Maryam knew that great deal would be decided this sixth and seventhday. Several gambits were about to either pay off or backfire.

On the other hand, Izel acted like a new man. After the Nineteenth Brigade dissolved and its members scattered across different cabals, Yaotl Acatl had not dared to stay in his presence. Between that and the conspicuous lack of paper stacks in the drawing room every evening hinting at how he’d set aside that lenslight, it was like a weight had come off his very soul. Good on him, Maryam thought. Sometimes you needed to call a dead end a dead end and move on.

His presence in the aether hadn’t changed, exactly – he was still a clock fighting to tick the wrong way – but the sharper edges of the sensation had lost a little bite.

Maryam could understand. The last week had been a nightmare, every passing day raising the odds Tristan would never return as she and Hooks struggled to find layer entrances that weren’t behind red lines – only for the fucking things to keep bringing them into Lucifer’s Landing, where she’d been sure he was not – and when the Thirteenth had gone into them, fending off the aether parasites drawn to their souls had been no less harrowing. Now that it was over, though?

Her affairs were, for once in her life, more or less in order. Formal word had come from the Western Fleet that her proposition was under review by Admiral Zokufa’s office, a private letter from Captain Tianming informing her that the admiral was inclined to take the deal but waiting to confirm the details of the debacle on Kofoni before putting his signature to anything.

Koval the Elder’s suggestion that she request a permit from the Garrison for the Orels to be allowed, if they could not sell fish outright then to sell the fish to Allazei shops, had yielded formal permission and a new trickle of income for the Orels. As the owners of the ship being used the Thirteenth collected a tenth of the profits. Half of the admittedly modest coin being made was put in general brigade funds, the other in a separate ‘ship fund’ to create a cushion for future repairs.

Between the evidence that she was actually getting things done and her successes in class, it was hard not to feel as if things were looking up. Maryam had finally gotten Ada’s Knot down and her Thalassics were rapidly progressing. Yue had said her Gust was good enough she could get started on the Squall, while her Stilling would need to be tested in the field but that she had ‘grasped the fundamental principles’. High praise, by Captain Yue’s standards.

“- which is why we bake little children into the dough. The louder they scream, the better.”

“You what now?” Maryam said, almost dropping her spoon as head whipped towards Izel.

“Just making sure you were listening,” he airily replied.

“You used to be so bashful around me,” Maryam complained. “Whatever happened to that?”

“You stopped calling me Izel Kooyak,” Izel replied.

Heh. That’d been one of the better ones, she thought with a smirk.

“We’ll be living under the same roof all year, so I suppose I could occasionally be nice to you,” Maryam conceded.

The Marshal had called the hunt to an end after the construct was slain, and a day later put out the list of students he considered to have completed their yearly test. The entire Thirteenth was counted among that number, so they were freed of the need to leave Allazei for the year. Not that they’d needed to take a ship to find trouble. There’d been quite a bit of anger over how few students Marshal de la Tavarin had counted as passing – barely a third – but given that most of the leading second year brigades who’d signed on were among the number the tension had not bubbled over.

Implicitly, taking a swing at the Thirteenth for passing would be putting in question the same for the Ninth, Third, Second and Thirty-First brigades. Even the independents that’d squeaked onto the list by scalps or lending their gun to the Battle of the Barrels weren’t being harassed by sore losers to avoid that same implication. That was a lot of dangerous enemies to make at the same time, after all.

“What a terrible fate,” Izel said. “Try not to sprain anything.”

“I’ll take fresh bread as reparations,” Maryam informed him.

He sighed, rising to his feet.

“I’d best put it in the oven now if I want to be done at a reasonable hour,” Izel said, rolling his shoulder.

Maryam waved him off, gobbled the last of the salted fish with her nose held up – sometimes sacrifices must be made – and put the plate in the sink. Song had somehow turned being bothered by her sister into Hooks doing one of their control exercises on the other side of the table. She was struggling with keeping two states at once, trying to both hold a stone with one hand and let a second pass through her fingers in the other, but there was some progress. While she wasn’t anywhere near simultaneous, these days Hooks could flicker back and forth in about a heartbeat.

Maryam plopped herself behind Song, leaning over her shoulder and obnoxiously smiling.

“What are you reading?” she brightly asked.

There was a profound sigh, then Song reached for her bookmark as Maryam glanced at the page.

“Huh,” she said, frowning as she leaned in further. “That’s not the part on the reading list. You’re looking into almatics?”

Song paused.

“It seemed prudent, given Angharad’s latest foe,” she said.

Almatics, the study of the soul, was one of the shoddier parts of theology. While one could learn about what souls did and that was a worthwhile endeavor, there’d been no real advance in what was known of how souls worked since the Second Empire – from which the name of the field had been inherited.

“And what does our old friend Alizia Arquer have to say about souls?” Maryam asked.

She’d found The Sea of Shapes a little too poetic for her tastes, prone to imagery, but that was hardly rare in older theology books and Arquer’s observations had all been rooted in actual observations and not rumors and anecdotes as was too often the case with almatics treatises. The book was worth the read.

“Mostly abstractions,” Song admitted. “A teratology manual might yield better insights, I think. Though there was a part of some interest here-”

She turned back two pages, then lowered her finger three paragraphs and tapped a line. Maryam squinted down at the small, cramped letters. Must have come from a Lierganen printing press, they were notoriously shoddy.

“-severing a soul from their natural body will not yield it to the Circle Perpetual but allow it to wander loose on the currents of the Sea of Shapes, delicate as a leaf in the wind,” she read out loud. “Without an anchor it is doomed to fade, and many of those who are not devoured by the unseen predators of the aether will seek to form an anchor-bond to either man or entity.”

Maryam drew back. What was being described here sounded not unlike the ways a Navigator could become a mara. The reckless or desperate few who fled their hollowing bodies by drastic measures – either trying to oust the soul in another body or make of their logos a creature they could ride – slowly lost their minds unless they managed to prey on others.

Not the part about entities, though, which ought to mean gods here. Even the soul of a Navigator carried enough taint to contaminate anything a god appended to it. Well, save for gods of the Old Night, the same that offered power to hollows, but for them a Navigator would not be tainted enough.

“You think Cai Wei made a deal with whatever is crafting the constructs?” she asked.

“I think she tried to kill Angharad for a reason,” Song said. “She could have fled into the layer that day and no one would have been sure what happened to her. So why the murder attempt?”

“There’s still a tie,” Maryam muttered with a frown. “So the monster-maker can keep her stable, but not fix her – or it won’t, for some reason. She thinks her shot at getting a body back is Angharad.”

“She has been observed to move things and touch people during raids,” Song said. “I expect she was given some form of a body to use, perhaps a crafted shell.”

“But breaking it won’t kill her,” Maryam said.

A pause.

“That’s a shame,” she said. “Otherwise Izel’s dispenser could have ended that problem with one pull of the trigger.”

An impressive piece of work, that thing. It’d be useless against a Navigator, else the guild would be taking a pointed interest, but the results during the hunt spoke for themselves.

“And add to the legion of polite inquiries about his work, no doubt,” Song said, sounding rather pleased on both their behalf. “Hardly a soul seems to remember his lenslight came to naught, these days.”

Maryam hummed.

“Salt and silver, then,” she said.

“As always,” her captain agreed. “Though I’ll not stop looking for other methods. Somehow I suspect that our friend Cai Wei won’t make it quite so easy for us to put her down.”

That sounded about right, Maryam thought, clenching her hand until the wood of the prosthetic fingers scratched against her palm. Still, it gave her ideas.

In practice, how different could Cai Wei really be from a soul-effigy?

—

It had been some time since Angharad last felt nerves at the thought of one of these evenings.

Despite the eventfulness of the first such banquet she had attended, the three she had been part of since were rather ordinary. Not to dismiss the quality of the food or the hosting, but without the dueling and the worst of the posturing they’d become society evenings not unlike those one might hold in town for one’s circle of acquaintances.

House Tredegar did not have a strong tradition of hosting, despite Father’s love of a good party, but the townhouse in Indawen and their rented manse in Isasha had seen occasional receptions along those lines. Angharad had been kept away from the evenings in the latter, as no banquet held in the capital could entirely avoid being drawn into the intrigues of the court, but she’d accompanied her mother at the receptions in the former since the age of fifteen.

It had been her duty as heiress to Llanw Hall to help maintain ties with the allies of House Tredegar, as she would be inheriting those very alliances. It’d not been an obligation she relished, especially since it often pulled her away at the height of the season on the dueling circuit, but nobility was a duty as much as it was a privilege. Mostly she’d hoped that her duty would never require a betrothal to Gladys Einion, whose lady mother had been ardently pushing the match for years.

Gladys was a fine enough woman, but painfully dull to converse with. Very interested in ferns, the many varieties thereof, and less so in ever talking about anything else.

The… tone of the gatherings in Allazei had also shifted after the yearly tests. As much from the restoration of Angharad’s own repute as from the sharp lessons many of those tests had taught those taking them. It felt pettier to point a blade at someone wearing the black over small turns of etiquette after having stood in a gun line with your fellow blackcloaks. No matter the enmities within the ranks, there would be worse waiting for them out in the world.

Tonight, though, one way or another Angharad would be undermining the foundation of that understanding.

Thando had sent word a week back that the venue would change, as given Colonel Cao’s continued use of the Colored Arches for her briefings the previous enthusiasm for the dining room had waned. It would return in time, when it no longer looked like mimicking a somewhat contentious teacher to arrange a meal there, but this once Thando Fenya had chosen to patronize a different establishment.

There were only so many fine dining options in Port Allazei and neither the Han Ya teahouse nor the Prantabhu suited the tastes of most guests – the former served only a handful of Tianxi dishes, the latter a mix of Izcalli and Someshwari plates characteristic to the Grand Duchy of Huac – so a compromise was reached in the form of the Anguila Azul, an establishment in walking distance of the docks that boasted freshly caught fish and assortments of lamb dishes.

The Anguila was the favorite of the higher ranks of local Garrison officers, in part for the traditional Sordon apple cider they made in-house, so Angharad was left to wonder how many favors Thando must have called in to secure the entire small restaurant for an evening.

It was situated near Regnant Street, a little to its south while being north of the sprawl of cheaper taverns and eateries filling up the left corner of the Triangle, so it was through the latter teeming streets that Angharad made her way. Occasionally running into acquaintances slowed her a little, though her dress made it clear she had evening plans so none took up too much of her time.

Even near Dreg’s Draughts, though, could not help but notice how many of those out and about were garrison soldiers off duty. With the false dantesvara dead and the upset in lemure territories ended, Colonel Azocar had pulled out the vast majority of the soldiers that’d been assigned to the line of defense facing the Ashgarden – much to their relief, given how many of them had been pulling consecutive double duty shifts.

Angharad had not realized quite how ragged the local force was being run until she saw the riotous joy of the off-duty soldiers. They sounded more like sailors after a long voyage than soldiers garrisoning a city.

The last stretch was a broad street connecting to Regnant, and Angharad had wondered if she would run into anyone near the finish line. She’d spent time conjuring best and worst outcomes for it, only to stumble into a perfectly middle-of-the-line encounter.

Zama Luvuno looked fine in his new silver doublet, cloaked in stripes of black and white that matched the black-and-white feathers doffing his silken toque. Angharad offered him a bow, receiving the same, and fell in besides him – they were less than a minute’s walk away from the gates of the Anguila, conversation ought not to be too onerous.

Angharad raised her hands and moved slowly through the signs she’d learned. Finger-talk more difficult than naval talk, she signed at him. His brow rose, a flicker of interest passing through his eyes, and he slowly went through same signs she had only the hand with two clawed fingers for ‘difficult’ touching the other hand when he did it. Ah. She must have made a mistake. She nodded and repeated the movement as he had done it, to an approving nod.

Naval talk for war, Zama signed back, keeping the gestures simple and slow. Finger-talk by priests.

“I had no idea,” Angharad admitted. “The latter, I mean. It has religious roots?”

Spirit nonsense, he signed, rolling his eyes.

She snorted. While she was no Redeemer – which she thought Zama must surely be, as a Malani highborn with blood ties to the Queen Perpetual – she was not beyond a measure of healthy derision towards the many follies that some spirits demanded of their worshippers. The Sleeping God did not demand strange ordinances or blood in bowls, only faith that He would wake. That which was truly divine did not bargain, did not need to.

Their steps slowed as they reached their destination, marked by the hanging sign of an eel painted vivid blue. Zama courteously gestured for her to pass under the arched gate first, and Angharad found inside a small stand with a harried-looking older woman standing behind it.

“Good evening,” she said. “Might I ask your names?”

Angharad gave her own, and then Zama’s after inquiring with a glance and getting a nod. After checking in her ledger the attendant smiled and invited them in, crossing out what Angharad assumed to be both names, and called for another servant to take their cloaks. The Anguila was nowhere as polished as the Colored Arches had been, the Pereduri noted, and was noticeably shorter on staff. Still, their affairs were promptly taken to the cloakroom and they were guided to the main space after a short wait.

The restaurant had a rather straightforward layout. The front, where they were first received, was little more than an antechamber and cloakroom. Past a set of sliding doors they entered a paved courtyard holding a dozen tables of varying sizes, set under the open sky with a large fountain in the center that had been repurposed into a pond. Fish swam there, small colorful forms flickering in greenish water.

On the left there was a strip of inside tables – though Angharad noted that there were also hooks on the edge of the courtyard roof, presumably to put up a tarp that would shield diners from the rain – and to the right there was a flurry of activity in a kitchen standing behind a high wooden counter. A dozen cooks and servants moved around a roaring hearth. A covered section in the back, about the same size as the front, was hidden behind a wooden wall painted with an undersea scene of frolicking animals.

It held the latrines, presumably, as Angharad saw nowhere else they might be.

The two of them were among the first to arrive, though of course not the first. Thando Fenya was already there, awaiting them with a smile, as was a welcome surprise in the form of Awonke Bokang.

“Angharad!” he exclaimed, evidently returning the feeling.

After greetings were exchanged Thando watched them pair off with a tolerant look. Though Angharad would not have called Awonke more than a passing acquaintance until recently, their work together during the hunt had narrowed that gap. Friend was perhaps still too strong a word, but they were now firmly friendly. In an accent that had decisively repulsed any attempt by time at Scholomance to soften it, the tinker congratulated her on Tristan’s return and asked news of his health.

“He suffered little but exhaustion,” Angharad replied. “He was still not well enough to attend class this morning, but tomorrow I expect he will be.”

Tristan’s fall and reappearance had been subject of some interest to the student body, though not anywhere as much as the greater excitement of the false dantesvara’s slaying. In truth, even Izel’s ‘dispenser’ had gotten more attention than the only potential student casualty. Angharad might have been inclined to take offense on Tristan’s behalf were he not openly pleased not to have been at the center of gossip.

“Glad news,” Awonke warmly said. “He proved a steady fellow in a fight.”

“So did you,” Angharad teased. “Has Musa decided how he’s taking your saving his life yet?”

It’d been confirmed that the odd colorful cloth that had turned Musa being flung at the cavern wall into a fall that sprained his leg instead of something that snapped his back was the work of Awonke’s contract, which Musa had been struggling with. While the two were on decent terms, their brigades were very much at odds and owning such a public life debt to a theoretical rival was thorny bit of honor to deal with.

“If we weren’t blackcloaks, I expect I would have been introduced to a cousin by now,” Awonke snorted. “My house are igosa, so even my being folded into a Shange branch would be considered marrying up.”

Angharad’s brow rose in surprise, as she’d had no inkling of this. Igosa, the so-called ‘titled reeves’, were particular to the isle of Uthukile. Like royal reeves they were officers in the service of the Queen Perpetual, but their sole duty was to administer a royal estate on the Low Isle. Though the charge was usually passed down like an inheritance, the crown could choose to revoke it at any point so igosa were considered by many to be the least noble of nobles.

Even a minor house like the Tredegar had owned the land they dwelled on.

“The families we come from only matter so much, on Tolomontera,” Angharad consoled.

The connections hardly became worthless, but for all its brutality Scholomance rewarded merit over birth. The only blood it cared about was the one spilled.

“That I will toast to, when we get a drink,” Awonke laughed.

His smile waned a little afterwards, though, and he cleared his throat before speaking in a lowered voice.

“Though I must ask: will that enlightened manner of thinking be applied to every house tonight?” he asked.

Angharad kept her face bland.

“I would not pursue any grudge based solely on a surname,” she said, which was answer enough.

Nkosinathi Morcant had well earned her ire off his deeds alone. Awonke let out a pensive grunt.

“He won’t have a lot of friends here tonight,” he told her. “But he will have some. You heard about Claver?”

Angharad’s lips thinned. She had, in fact, heard about Andreu Claver’s limbs being restored to perfect health. More specifically, that their restoration was not the work of Lady Knit. Part of her sympathized, as the price the spirit set to mend a leg that was little more than red pulp and a crippled arm must have been ruinous, but the very clear favor that the Ninth Brigade now owned Nathi Morcant was an unfortunate hurdle.

She did not particularly want to duel Musa, who might feel obliged to get involved on his friend and brigade’s behalf should their benefactor be assailed in his presence. It stuck in her throat, how Morcant had just had that opportunity drop into his lap. But then she supposed it’d been only a matter of time until someone from a prominent brigade used his services, given their line of work. His contract, while horrid, really was that useful.

“I am aware,” she stiffly said.

“He’s also been approaching Lord Fanyana, though I’ve no idea if he got anywhere,” Awonke added.

Angharad breathed in sharply. Fanyana Khosa, despite his gloomy countenance and occasional tactlessness, wielded a great deal of clout within their company by virtue of having the highest birth among them. House Khosa had been izinduna for centuries, as high as nobles could stand below the High Queen, and it was not rare for nobles of the house to sit on Her Perpetual Majesty’s royal council. While he did not wield anything like authority over their gatherings, his word had weight.

If he backed Nathi Morcant, even with a light hand, it would make dealing with him significantly more difficult.

“Nenetl told me I’m free to offer a hand with the situation,” Awonke said with admirable bluntness. “If you want it.”

Angharad’s brow rose again. Weighing the approach, she decided on equal bluntness.

“And what would that help cost me?”

If it was alignment with the Third over the Ninth, she would have to refuse. A trade of personal favors, however, would be acceptable.

“Never selling the Ninth one of Coyac’s blastcaps, or the plans to them,” he immediately replied.

Part of that was amusing – Izel absolutely despised what gossip had named his aether spike dispenser, insisting on the full proper name every time – but the rest less so. Andreu Claver had, before his wounding, expressed interest in the device and Sebastian Camaron had since reiterated it. So had the First Brigade, for that matter, in the wake of the raid on that first year Teratology class.

To specifically blacklist the Ninth Brigade would be an open slap in the face, taking a side in their feud with the Third, so Angharad could not accept the terms.

“I thank you for the offer,” she said, inclining her head.

Awonke shrugged. He’d not held out much hope of an agreement, she suspected, but felt compelled to make the offer regardless. Song’s deft navigation of the two rival brigades during the hunt must have lowered expectations, considering the Thirteenth had emerged from it on better terms with both sides. That was not something to be tossed away casually.

The other guests soon began arriving. Fanyana Khosa and Captain Emeni Maziya – the latter’s hair was a little mussed and she went around all loose-limbed and smirking, so Angharad could guess why they’d arrived together – first and then a steady trickle followed. Musa arrived flanked by the Emain twins on either side, a situation that left him visibly and entertainingly unsettled, and Lindiwe was the last to arrive.

Lady Sarru was limping and had a fresh wound on the side of her head that required a bandage. Usually one of the livelier presences at these banquets, tonight she stood muted and absent-minded. While Angharad took on the hunt, Lindiwe Sarru had struggled in the depths of the Acallar with a reduced crew. She’d made up the numbers by taking on anyone willing as she tried to push through the Steel List while there was still time. She’d not had losses yet, Angharad had heard, but wounds were mounting.

She would get to see it with her own eyes soon enough, given that after one last examination by the Akelarre she would be cleared to return to the Acallar. Cai Wei had escaped her to become a plague on them all, but the dead woman’s first promise had proved true: the wound in Angharad’s soul left by the possession last year appeared to have been entirely mended.

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With everyone meant to be present now at hand, Thando called the guests to attention and the crowd gathered around him holding their wine glasses – Angharad finding herself standing between Awonke and who she suspected might be Branwen Emain. The twins were in a decent mood tonight, as shown by the way they’d not immediately started talking in Gwynt to each other after Angharad greeted them, but not in so good a mood they would bother to clarify which of them was which.

Thando kept the speech short, as was fitting given that he was not quite the host, but made sure to dole out praise for those that had brought the hunt to a close and duly received a polite round of cheers for it. He then pivoted to the most immediate matter.

“Our new guests are meant to arrive in a quarter hour,” Thando Fenya reminded them. “As always, I open to floor to any with objections to a name. Voice your concerns now, so that the matter might be handled with delicacy.”

The ‘rules’ were an informal arrangement, as such things tended to be. One of them objecting to a name would not be enough, the weight of unspoken disapproval from everyone else by custom leading them to retract, but as soon as two spoke against an invitation the matter was considered settled.

That arrangement was how, even after many months of Angharad sounding out other members, Zenzele had yet to ever receive an invitation. Musa had always starkly objected – and not, Angharad would concede, for a bad reason – and he was always backed by Zama Luvuno in this. And, ever since Angharad had taken up his cause, Lindiwe as well. She seemed to be doing this mostly out of spite, which was just typical of her.

But it was not because of Zenzele Duma that gazes turned to her this time. Thando had yet to speak any of the names, but everyone knew Nathi Morcant was on the list. Angharad said nothing. It had been her own intent that Morcant come, after all. Barring him from ever attending, which she could have relatively easily achieved, would have had little impact. It would be a footnote, easily explained away.

He had to be invited and then be cast out. That would be a death blow to his reputation.

“Zwelakhe Tiba,” Thando called out, opening the list.

The answering murmurs were in approval. The man was from a western Malani house and no great one, but he was also from a lineage of swordmasters and himself on his sixth line. Angharad’s other preoccupations meant she had not kept up with the goings-on of the first year Skiritai, but from what little she had heard his reputation was solid.

“Odwa Femba,” Thando added.

Not a word was spoken, though some looks were slid the way of Fanyana Khosa. Lord Odwa was a Stripe and part of House Femba of Tsenda, the lords of the most populous city in Uthukile. House Femba and House Khosa had been bitter enemies before the unification of the Isles, as the most powerful petty kings of southern Uthukile and northern Malan. Lord Fanyana, however, displayed only indifference.

“Esihle of the isiBele,” Thando continued.

A Low Isle clan, to bear the isi in front of the surname. There was a snort from Awonke. She cocked an eyebrow at him and he leaned closer, pitching his voice low.

“The Bele clan borders the riverlands,” he murmured. “Even odds she throws hands with the Femba by the evening’s end. And if she calls him ichetyiwe, someone’s going to pull a blade.”

She did not recognize the term – in Matabele, she assumed – so she asked.

“It means ‘shorn’,” Awonke grinned. “The clans like to say the Femba are the High Queen’s favorite sheep.”

Oh dear, Angharad thought, trying not to be too amused. It was not too much of a trial, given the next name.

“Nkonisathi Morcant.”

Eyes went back to her, but Angharad put on a passable imitation of Lord Fanyana’s lordly indifference and interest waned when she gave them nothing. With assent in hand for all four names, the floor was closed.

Some plates were circulated for them, croquettas and other small morsels matching the wine, and after a span of fifteen minutes the last guests arrived. Zwelakhe first, the swordmaster-in-training, and Angharad joined what Emeni Maziya playfully ribbed as the ‘Skiritai League’ when all three Militants went to greet their underclassman. Even Lindiwe managed to muster a degree of charm for the occasion, perhaps squeezing out the last drops of it left in the rag of her character.

There was some chatter when Odwa Femba arrived and was immediately greeted by the usually distant Fanyana Khosa, who actually looked pleased by the other man’s presence and made a point of mentioning loud enough to be overheard that as youths they’d spent a year studying under the same swordmaster in the capital.

When Lady Esihle of the isiBele arrived, however, it was in the company of Nathi Morcant. Not arm-in-arm, and the mood did not seem particularly warm between them, but Angharad still took note. Lady Esihle was of the Arthashastra Society, but she had knuckles like Tall Bibek’s – the kind one got from years of hard training in hand-to-hand. If she did punch Odwa Femba, Angharad mused, that elegant jaw of his might just end up broken.

Unlike Lord Fanyana, Angharad did not seek out the reason glances were snuck her way. Not that it changed anything, for even as she kept chatting with Kasijo Njezi and Captain Emeni – the latter was telling them she found it interesting that many more of the current first years were from families in the black than the original Scholomance batch – Nathi Morcant made his way directly to them.

This was not a Watch evening, or a Watch party, so the bold fashion that Nkonisathi Morcant had stepped off his ship wearing was back to the fore, displacing the muted clothes he’d learned better fit blackcloak mores.

His doublet was inyoni cloth, the wax-print displaying vivid yellow concentric circles containing blue waves with the circle at the center of the pattern instead displaying the gray seal that was the heraldic beast of House Morcant, curled up. The sheer detail and color was astounding, and there was no doubt in Angharad’s mind that was this was a pattern exclusive to the use of his house – yet another boast of wealth. The trunks were in a different pattern with the same colors inverted, and his hose pure white. Snakeskin shoes, a necklace of fangs separated by hymn-inscribed gold tiles and a traditional headband in much less traditional cheetah fur completed the ensemble.

What he did not wear, Angharad noticed, was a sword at his hip. Only a small hunting knife and pistol. So that was to be his defense: helplessness. It was not a fullproof shield, he could still be called to account for his deeds and words while lacking a sword, but it would allow him to name a champion instead of fighting himself. He had come ready to spend that favor from the Ninth if she pushed for a duel.

It wasn’t that Angharad believed she could not beat Musa – her side wound wouldn’t slow her anywhere as much as his sprained leg would. But that very duel would set her on a course of collision with the Ninth even if it ended with first blood, undoing all of Song’s work. Her foe had come ready to gain from even defeat.

“Lady Tredegar,” Nathi Morcant directly greeted her, inclining his head. “Well met.”

“Am I?” Angharad mildly asked.

Captain Emeni coughed into her hand. Kasigo looked like he was moments away from pretending he’d heard someone calling out his name and tactically maneuvering away.

“I would hope so,” the Morcant replied without batting an eye, not rising to the bait. “I come to thank you for not exerting your influence to bar me the company of my fellow nobleborn. That restraint speaks well of your character.”

She cocked her head to the side. In her mind, Angharad had painted Nkonisathi Morcant in the colors of some serial villain. What she found, though, was a younger man with ostentatious clothes, a serious face and a beard she suspected he had grown to hide how pointed his chin was. Morcant had the build of a man who trained, not an idler, and decent manners. Someone she might have been well inclined to, at a society evening back in Peredur.

He had also ordered Song and Maryam publicly beaten by a crowd of thugs. And Ishanvi as well, Angharad mentally added, who was a darling girl and had not deserved such roughness.

“If you are barred from these evenings,” Angharad told him, “it will not be through a deal I cut. It will be a decision made open and forthright.”

He dipped his head again.

“I can ask for nothing else,” Nathi Morcant said. “Were I to blunder so severely as to lose the esteem of my peers, I would deserve such exile.”

He didn’t have the decency to rudely overstay after that, making his courtesies and drifting towards Thando Fenya for conversation with the man who’d invited him. An unimpeachable social decision. Kasigo near-immediately mentioned wanting to speak with Lindiwe about a point of teratology, beating a hasty retreat and leaving Angharad to stand with Emeni Maziya as they sipped at their wine.

“He’s a smooth little fucker, isn’t he?” Emeni finally said.

Angharad almost choked on her wine. She coughed, striking at her chest.

“I expected worse manners of him,” she admitted after catching her breath.

He had been very rude to Maryam, on their first meeting, though Song had warned her he’d been much more personable in front of Commander Bouare afterwards.

“A word of warning,” Emeni murmured. “He approached me last week to say that ‘no grudge’ was held over our previous affairs, and that he would like our dealings going forward to be amicable. I expect I’m not the only flank he moved to secure.”

Angharad sipped at her cup, more to hide her grimace than any great fondness for the wine.

“Is his flank now secured?” she asked the flank in question.

“I won’t offer him a hand,” Emeni replied. “But if he’s to be a staple of these evenings going forward, neither will I feud with him pointlessly.”

Angharad acknowledged the words with a nod.

“I never asked,” she said, “about your thoughts on the slave trade.”

“It’s not really banquet talk,” Emeni frowned. “But if you must know, I’ve no love for the practice.”