33

"Ah, the legend," Naervyn huffed a laugh. "The Draconian Princess burned her own capital to ash, as if a girl of eighteen could do such a thing alone."

"Fire is her innate skill," said ser Deraen. "She was born with it."

"I do not deny it," Naervyn said. "They are born with their natural elements, that much I have never disputed but I do not believe a single girl, however gifted, brought seventy percent of a city that size to ash by herself."

Saevon said nothing, only looked at her, the way a man looks at someone he suspects already knows the answer to the question she is asking.

"Whoever was captured alive after we took Solari," Naervyn went on, "tell me, Uncle, do you truly think they would say we did it together, all of us, side by side? Or would they find it far easier, far safer, to lay the whole of it at the feet of the one person who vanished, who cannot be found, who cannot speak for herself to say otherwise?"

Ser Deraen and Norvaente exchanged a glance of their own, weary sort passed between men who had sat through this exact argument more times than either cared to count, Naervyn and Saevon circling the same old ground, neither willing to yield an inch, and both of them long past the point of expecting either niece or uncle to be the first to bend.

"The choice remains of student," Saevon leaned on table. "Why should she accept our sponsorship?”

“Because no one else would take the Draconian girl, for taking her would declare them against us.”

“Aldaene...”

“Aldaene wouldn't," she cut him off. "An empire cowardly enough not to take part in war would not take part in starting one, Uncle.”

“She would not accept it, Naervyn," insisted Saevon. "The letter would invite insult because she has a choice.”

“Nobody wants her, and she does not have her House to provide for her,” Naervyn turned to her father. “I want her here, Papa, and when she is brought here, I can prove that she will be an asset.”

Norvaente looked at Saevon, and then at Naervyn and signed the letter citing Ryska’s sponsorship. Naervyn held roll in her hand and gave a victorious smile, it was a smile that did not reach her eyes, the kind of smile those near her knew to be dangerous.

Saevon looked toward his brother in agony, Norvaente met the look only briefly with the particular exhaustion of a man who had stopped fighting his daughter's will years ago and simply learned to survive whatever came of it instead.

Naervyn caught the exchange between them, she rose from her seat, crossed to where Saevon still sat, and leaned close. “Uncle, do you possess any talent beyond serving as an adviser?”

“Is there any particular skill you mean to ask after?” he glanced at her.

“In general, Uncle,” she took hold of his arm. “I have always heard that a man ought to possess more than one skill, for one never knows when he may find himself in need of one he does not have, or when the one he has mastered may no longer be of use to him.”

“To be born second was a gift to me,” he held her gaze with a gentle smile. “It allowed me the freedom not to be the best. It is a curse, though, for those whose ambition reaches for the sky and knows nothing of the ground beneath it.”

Naervyn returned his smile with one of her own and left with Cessa, her cape trailed behind her in a manner that hinted at her simmering anger. He understood it and felt a sense of satisfaction. He had always played upon her place as the second-born to get beneath her skin. Though he knew she was not truly troubled by her birth order, he also knew she resented the extra effort required to claim the throne because of it.

"Why do you trouble her so?" Norvaente asked. "What happiness do you truly gain from it?"

"It is a matter between uncle and niece," Saevon waved a dismissive hand. "I would have you let us be, Jye, do not trouble yourself over our own particular sport."

Norvaente huffed a fond smile at that, whatever else troubled him about the two of them, at least his brother loved his daughter as though she were his own, whatever differences stood between them, however fiercely they needled each other, they loved one another enough, in the end, never to truly destroy each other the way so many royal families, his own included, so often destroyed themselves from within.

"As far as I know Ryska," Ser Deraen said, "she would not accept our patronage."

"Are you worried, then, Warlord Ser Deraen" Norvaente asked, "of another war rising against us?"

"Can it be called another, Your Majesty," Deraen asked, "when the first has never truly finished?"

Norvaente fell silent at that, the war, he understood plainly enough, however the treaties named it, had never truly ended at all.

"We gained nothing," Saevon said bitterly. "Everything we wanted from Solari, its groves, its treasury, its ancient stores of knowledge, the hill, Ryska burned everything to ash before we ever reached its gates. Now we hold an empty, ruined empire, and no subject kingdom of House Aen had yet formally surrendered even now. Jaelam works the recovery as swiftly as any man could ask of him, but the gods alone know how many years must pass before we begin to see even a fraction returned of what this war has already cost us."

"We need Navale Bay," said Ser Deraen. "Its trade alone would recover in a single year what six years of war has bled from us tenfold."

"Have you heard anything further from Jaelam?" Norvaente asked.

"Only that Ocene grows difficult to manage," Saevon said. "He demands the position promised him and grows reluctant to hear why we cannot yet offer it."

"Then you believe you must go yourself?" Norvaente studied his brother.

"You ought to let our brother shine, for once," Saevon smiled. "Rather than carry every burden of diplomacy upon my shoulders alone."

Norvaente allowed himself a small smile at that, then he and Ser Deraen fell soon after into deeper discussion of the war's slow and grinding recovery in a weary cadence of men long accustomed to counting losses rather than victories.

Saevon rose from his own seat during the lull, crossed to the window and looked out north toward the distant, unseen ruin of Solari.

Was Ocene lying, he wondered, when we stood before ashes vaster than any mortal mind could properly measure, and he told us plainly it was Ryska's doing alone? He searched for whatever gain a lie might have offered the man and found none worth the naming. Ocene had nothing to gain from painting her so fearsome, quite the opposite. Had he wished favor, he might easily have claimed her weak, easily captured, easily broken, and earned himself far greater reward for the telling.

Instead, he had warned them, he had said it so plainly, Saevon thought, the warning echoed grimly and without embellishment in his memory exactly as Ocene had first spoken it.

Whenever you can capture her, you are not to corner Ryska, not when her hands remain upon her own body.