“You’ll be pleased to hear that the shipment from the Sacred Forest has been received by Edrea Baines.” As she spoke, Lady Corvina maintained her careful posture with her hands in her lap. Her tea remained untouched.

“Who?” said the Emperor, mouth half-full of tea-cake.

“The alchemist,” said Corvina. “I’m assured we’ll have a report on her first experiments this time next week.”

The Emperor nodded. “Fine, fine. And about this ball tomorrow.”

“What of it?” asked Corvina.

“I hear that Saintess is coming,” said the Emperor.

“She’s of no strategic importance,” said Corvina. “She was only invited so that the church would stop making a fuss. The church is weak, but there are still those among the nobility who consider themselves devout, and they would be displeased if it seemed like the church was being slighted overmuch.”

The Emperor waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t care about any of that. I’m merely curious about her since she seems to be all anyone talks about these days. What have you heard about her?”

Corvina gave a slight shrug. “Nothing of interest. Saintess Anne Coris was a foundling, raised by the church in Longren, near the Sacred Forest. She can perform minor miracles, but nothing approaching the power of dangerous ancient magic. By all accounts she’s mild and soft spoken.”

Corvina didn’t add that the Saintess was an elf, although her intelligence network had easily been able to uncover that barely-kept secret. It wasn’t relevant, for now, and it would just set her father off on one of his rants.

“Is she pretty?” asked the Emperor.

“I couldn’t say,” said Corvina. “Although people do say she has a heavenly glow about her. Perhaps it comes from the blessing of the goddess.”

The emperor scoffed.

The emperor was no-doubt about to say something rude about the goddess when Prince Sebastian burst into the room, followed shortly by Grand Duke Marshal. “Father, there you are!” exclaimed Sebastian. “You must tell Marshal not to be so unbearably dull and come out riding with me.”

Crown Prince Sebastian Wyernwolf had long golden hair tied back in a ponytail, and golden eyes the same as his father’s. As the only legitimate child of the Emperor, he was guaranteed to inherit. He was also widely considered something of a spoiled idiot.

In contrast, Grand Duke Robert Marshal had short, well-kept dark hair, dark eyes, and was generally considered a serious and competent young man, if a bit dour. As Grand Duke, he was the third highest-ranking man in the Empire, just behind the Emperor and the Crown Prince. But in all the years of the Empires history, the Marshal family had never yet intermarried with the imperial family. And with no blood connection to the Wyernwolfs, Robert had no chance of ever becoming Emperor himself.

“Your majesty,” said the Duke, with a deep bow. “I never refused to go riding with your son. I merely informed him that I had military duties to complete first. I will ride with him as much as he likes in the afternoon.”

The Prince scoffed, and threw himself down on a chair, lounging in it. “You’re always going on about your duties these days, Marshal. You were much more fun when we were children and you didn’t have duties.”

“I apologize, your highness,” said the Duke. “I will endeavor to be more fun in the future.”

“After your duties are all done with?”

“After my duties are complete, yes.”

“Well, just make sure you don’t have any duties tomorrow,” said Prince Sebastian. “There’s a ball tomorrow, and as far as I’m concerned, that means the party goes on all day.”

“As you say,” said Duke Marshal, his expression blank.

“Father, that Saintess is coming tomorrow, isn’t she? Is she attractive at all?”

“Apparently no one knows,” said the Emperor.

“I suppose I’ll just have to see for myself then, shall I?” Prince Sebastian jumped up from his seat. “Marshal! If you won’t ride with me, have someone track down that pretty new chambermaid I was speaking to yesterday and tell her to meet me at the stables. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to go riding with me.”

“As you say, your highness,” said the Duke.

Sebastian strode out of the room. The Duke turned to follow him, but the Emperor grabbed him suddenly by the arm, stopping him.

“Listen here, if my son says to go riding with him, then you damn well go riding with him,” the Emperor snarled. “And do a better job of hiding your contempt in his presence, you ass. You’re lucky you’re his childhood friend and he’s lenient with you. But if you make him hate you you’ll be utterly useless to me as a means to control him, understood?”

“Understood, your majesty,” said the Duke.

The Emperor let him go. On his way out, the Duke instructed one of the royal guardsmen to track down the chambermaid for the Prince.

“Which chambermaid was he referring to, sir?” asked the guard.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the Duke. “Just pick any pretty maid. He won’t know the difference.”

The Duke and the guard left, closing the door behind them.

The entire time they were in the room, neither the Duke nor the Prince had acknowledged Lady Corvina once. She was waiting patiently in her neutral stance.

The Emperor sighed and shook his head. “When I’m gone, it will be up to you to manage those two to prevent the empire from falling into ruin,” he said to Corvina. “That son of mine is as dumb as bricks, so he’ll need the Duke as the power behind the throne to maintain our empire’s strength, but that Duke is too proud for his own good, so as his wife you’ll have to find a way to keep his ego in check, you understand me?”

“Yes, Father,” said Lady Corvina. “I understand you.”

The Emperor smiled his generous, hateful smile. “Very good. I know I can always count on you, my girl. If only you weren’t the daughter of a whore, you could have inherited the throne and I would have been able to rest easy knowing the future of the Empire is secure. Ah, well. We each must play the hand that’s been dealt us.”

Finally, the Emperor left, along with the remaining guards.

Helen let out a huge breath, placing one hand on her heart and the other on Lady Corvina’s shoulder. “Thank goodness that’s over. I would never dream of leaving you alone with those three, but I don’t know how you always manage to maintain such a will of steel in front of them. They all terrify me. I’m only glad the prince doesn’t think I’m pretty. And that fiance of yours, he could have at least said hello to you.”

Lady Corvina removed her hands from her lap at last and took a sip of her cold tea, thinking about how long it would take her to get home and have a cigarette, away from prying eyes.

The Saintess’ carriage rolled into the capital, Wyernwolf City, just after dusk on the night before the Summer Ball. They would be staying at the Grand Cathedral, which was within walking distance of the Imperial Palace. Another group of High Clerics was waiting for their arrival.

As they came to a halt, sister Eva jumped down from the rider’s seat and addressed the waiting clerics. “May I present Saintess Anne Corris, Chosen of the Goddess.” She gave a slight bow before turning to open the door to the carriage.

“Rock-paper-scissors, shoot!”

“Damn it!”

“Rock-paper-scissor, shoot!”

“Damn it! How do you keep beating me every time?” said Agis, two fingers held out in a scissors gesture.

“Because the goddess likes me more, I guess,” said Anne, fist curled in a rock.

Eva cleared her throat, and the two elf siblings finally noticed their audience. Agis instantly flung himself out of the opposite door of the carriage and disappeared into the night.

“Oh, um,” said Anne, hiding her fist behind her back. “Hello! Anyone here ever played rock-paper-scissors?”

No one appeared particularly amused. Anne tried to put on a more dignified persona as Eva helped her out of the carriage and she made her various greetings before being ushered through another maze-like church and left in another stone-lined bedchamber.

“I’m so sorry,” Eva said as she helped Anne prepare for bed. “I should have given you more warning. We have to make a good impression here since this is the church where the Bishop resides. Luckily it seems she wasn’t part of the greeting party today, but it’s best if we put our best foot forward when we meet her. You’re technically higher ranked, of course, but everything is much simpler with the hierarchy of the church on our side.”

“I understand,” said Anne, wondering if she would actually have a chance to talk to the Bishop or if Eva would end up as a go-between again.

“Now, get some rest,” said Eva. “The ball is tomorrow. You have a big role to play, and you need to be prepared.”

Anne slept fitfully that night. In her dreams, she was sitting in the front row of a dark, empty theater.

A spotlight turned on, illuminating Saintess Anne. She was surrounded by people—Eva, Agis, the High Clerics of the church—each one holding part of a rope that wrapped coiled around Anne’s limbs, trapping her in the tangle.

A second spotlight turned on, on the opposite side of the stage, illuminating Lady Corvina. She, too, was surrounded. The Emperor, the Crown Prince, and the Grand Duke, and various shadowy figures, all held on to the rope that held her in place, snaking around every limb.

Everything held like this for a moment. Suddenly, the Grand Duke moved, breaking the terrible tableau. He took his section of the rope, winding it around Corvina’s neck like a noose. Then he began to move across the stage, letting the rope out behind him, not quite pulling it tight enough to choke Corvina, until finally he reached the Saintess’ side.

Eva stood back to make room for the Grand Duke, and the Saintess’ head turned to meet Anne’s gaze just as the Duke’s hand closed around her neck.

The stage went dark.

“Are you just going to play your role, then?”

Anne jumped. The Saintess had appeared in the seat beside her.

“You said you wouldn’t let him have his way.”