He had been living away from his father's castle, the Old Meander, for four years, only visiting between semesters, studying for his law exams while attending university in Nevespora.

With Barathiel's classwork complete, his final exam for his licensure scheduled in four months, his father sent a letter through Milborne. The raven they shared for nearly daily communication.

So glad to hear you passed your class work with honors - bring your books along and join your old homestead for the short time you'll have with us before you get kicked into the hard-ass world of seneschals and couriers I so ill prepared you for, boy.

Your sister is recently back from Temple, and she has been asking about you. Assumes inexplicably you have been living a rogue's life in that big city. I assured her your near every hour has been spent in study.

What have they done to my brother, she wants to know!

Before you pass this way, steer towards your university's musicology library and look something up for me. I've picked the four string rote back up and need the music for a song whose chorus goes like this.

I'll be your left hand, intriguing lady

I'll be your right hand, insatiable lady

I'll be your very lips, my dear Muse

I'll be your right hand, fearsome lady

I'll be your left hand,

Oh, insolent one.

But only Rozzenblunde

Can have my heart true.

The syllables work so much better together in old Nin but it's still a fine, fine ditty. I believe the name of it to be, To the One My Heart Stays True.

Does it not seem to you, dear son, those old songs of the Nin were written by spies in the guise of roaming bards? When I see the lines, I often feel as if I stumbled upon an old conspiracy to undermine the Sœurarchy.

I have long been fascinated by the history of the intelligencers in service to various causes, but this one feels like it is hiding in plain sight, does it not?

Perhaps, we'll hash out some old, hidden meaning from this, discover Its long hidden subterfuge against The Graces, and get our good standing back when we pass it along to the Empress' court.

Signed, the old man.

Barathiel chuckled at the brazenness of his father's last several remarks. The message was wrapped in metal foil whose bumps and grooves formed the key pattern to translate the syllables in the song that formed the code.

He wrote them down then realigned them according to the date the message was signed off in relation to the number of days between equinox and solstice of the current season. Once he hunted down the full verse stanzas in the original Nin, he would be able to translate.

For the inner circle of the Obisvyrre it was the extra method they used to conduct their cryptology. The phosphorus ciphers without tertiary reference to old song books (as Obisvyrre was born of a society of bards of another era) and cardinal seasonal alignment used by only low-ranking agents.

Yet another misdirection to keep the Imperial intelligencers, Inquisitor ardants and legal houses busy. Misdirection, the same was true as to Obisvyrre's reputation for debauchery.

Agents for that purpose were selected from those possessing scurrilous reputations from every kingdom of the empire and even D'jestre lands to give the impression Obisvyrre was a social club of hellions and libertines, decadents of the upper crust and not much more than that.

The song had been planted by an agent whose identity to which even Barathiel was not privy.

Barathiel retrieved the book and returned to his private quarters. Sorted syllables for the first line read: disregard what I said of your sister asking about you, unfortunately, just part of the ruse. Your sister returned to us, a week ago. The next set read: the damage inflicted by those foul bitches may be irreparable.

The remainder of the contents was a plea for Barathiel to return home and to do what he could to adjust her back to the normalcy of their homestead. Tareth, their father, laid out a plan to accomplish just that.

When he was finished with the full cipher, Barathiel made himself sit down for a smoke to clear his head. No second daughter was ever allowed to know their clans membership in Obisvyrre until after Temple, and their loyalty to their families proven beyond doubt.

His father gave Barathiel an assignment. Come home, court your sister, as she needed to be eased back into her proper station since being perverted by the Temple.

It would be a necessary societal adjustment before she could be married off to another house. He assumed it would be an easy task as his sister worshipped him back in the days they grew up as twin playmates exploring the Old Meander, the long grounds and outlying lochs touching upon the countryside together.

She also possessed a natural grace that had been refined even more still by formal education and etiquette that he doubted the old, wretched goddesses could subvert.

He would escort her to a series of formal dinners, lectures, and a season of balls, and then hand her off to the most prospective bachelor. However, Tereth felt otherwise.

According to him, It would not be so easy. Brietess had changed. His father refused to spell it out. Insisting Barathiel would have to see the malformation of his sister's spirit for himself.

Tareth felt she may even be a spy for the Sœurarchy under the cover of a newly freed woman whose first mission was to turn against her own family.

Barathiel was the closest to her in the family. It would be up to him to draw her out and find the truth to whom she was really loyal.

Once accomplished, what did Tereth have in mind if she was indeed enthralled to the Lady Wolves? Marry her to a family so remote from the Midvries and the lower Ninci as to make visitation a rare and impractical occurrence?

Barathiel pondered this on the stagecoach journey back home with a low ebb in the side of his gut. To have her back again, only to lose her if Tareth's fears proved true.

He clasped his hands together and blew smoke into them. His mind never drifted from full sobriety as he thought it all through. An unbearable burden his father placed upon him to spy on the one person he loved the most.

He waved the smoke away, as the manor crept in view. when the stagecoach crawled a little closer, he could see Tareth sitting on a bench by the front porch.

His hand clutching his knees. His jowls made ragged by a knowing smile. A thin rimmed cap with ribboned copper bandings etched with musical instruments and nude muses along its many stacked folds sat on his head, like a troubadour of a long gone year.

Tareth's hands clasped a bass rote.

Your smile is so disarming for such a dangerous man. Barathiel once heard a flirtatious lady dignitary tell his father at a social club.

He was too young to understand why a foreign noble would say something like that. Was he allowed to smack them on the head with the back of his ring finger like Tareth did Barathiel on occasion?

That same smile was writ large on Tareth's face like a signature now as he nodded to his son.

A breeze caressed the cab door window to his right. Barathiel grew suspicious. He smelled the distinctly pleasant aroma of a ham being roasted.

He peered to the entrance door, but no one stood there. On his right, facing south, were hedges that obstructed his view.

The stagecoach stopped and Barathiel jumped out. He looked around. What is old Tareth up to? Not sensing anything amiss, except for what was now evident, the smell of meat roasting and oil pots blazing,

Barathiel turned back to the stagecoach and grabbed the two bags he brought with him from the top of the coach supports.

Hard stricken bass notes started in the rhythmic support of a sweet sounding voice that approached from the other side of the hedgerow. Barathiel shivered and his stomach grew light.

When did Brietess learn to sing?

He turned to his father who now stood with the rote hoisted against his waist. His foot tapping in brown boots of soft elk leather.

A song on Tareth's lips in a harsh baritone now joined by the honey voiced singer who turned out to be Barathiel's cousin Ellie:

Even my vices are necessities in service to you.

I'll fetch a thousand pearls from The Sea of Wight.

And crush the bright orbs

To sheen your blackened spells

I'll bind the devils

With the hearts of Jezde maids

And feed to the wild boars

Their succulent bones.

Not missing a syllable, Ellie ran up to hug Barathiel. She nearly brought him down. The song continued as she took him by the hand and led him to the other side of the hedgerow.

I'll gamble away

All the orphans of Nin

To the dark hearted dwarves

From under the sod

Of the deep ravine

Where their little fingers

Wear callused and bone thin

Picking away at adamantine

And if the chance bones

Sway my way,

They whisper the blood-drenched

Secrets of our long-delayed Father

We'll gather their treasures

To subdue the entire world

Then offer it all to you

To dispense with as you please.

As they sung, Ellie's brothers Emotche and Eretche toted his bags. Barathiel called to both of them in greeting. Repeating their names made him smile with a chuckle.

The Nin custom of naming all siblings with the same letter was especially aesthetically egregious with the two brothers.

At least their parents did right by Eliavonne, Ellie's full name. Giving a girl a name unbecoming of her beauty was a beheading offense in the Midvries. Just to be safe, Aunt Harene chose one traditional of the Middle Kingdoms.

Emotche was only twelve and Eretche would be turning twenty in a month. Winsome Ellie just turned her majority. He would need to take time to apologise for missing her ball.

Tareth followed behind them, strumming as he did so. A crowd of his neighbors had lined up at three long sets of tables. It seemed to Barathiel the entire community of expat Nincians crowded to welcome him home, or at least to participate in a feast provided by Tereth Solugarr.

Ellie joined the band now striking up an accompanying racket on a platform held up by hay bales. His father's feet started to shuffle that way as well.

His head nodded to the manor. Barathiel turned to look to see his mother waving at him. He waved back.

"You're right, sir. This is the best she has looked in years."

She turned around and walked back into the house.

"Now, make your rounds, son," Tereth commanded. "We can talk later. Right now, I have a band engagement."

"Taking the troupe on the road, sir?"

Tareth laughed at his chide and smacked him on the back.

"Without any doubt, my boy."

Tareth eased up on the platform heading the makeshift band completed the song with its chorale:

I'll be your left hand,

intriguing lady

I'll be your right hand,

insatiable lady

I'll be your very lips,

my dear Muse

I'll be your right hand,

fearsome lady

I'll be your left hand,

Oh insolent one.

But only Rozzenblunde,

Can have my heart true.

Barathiel now eyed the crowd. Which one of these sweet, young things was his old man trying to impress with the faded glory of a troubadour? He peered around from bench to bench, until a niggling feeling again itched at him. Where was Brietess? Why had it not been she who greeted him instead of Ellie?

He had missed it until now, that being when he noticed where the Nincian men's appreciative gazes tended to turn. At a far table, casually slumped on a bench with her back leaning against a table edge, set Brietess enwrapped in conversation with an albino woman with long, platinum hair splayed out on the bench where the two huddled.

The albino wore the smooth black otter leather common to the Sgoëthe under a fine green cendal robe embroidered with severely mannered runes and dragon motifs draped off her shoulders.

The two women casually touched hands together with a flitter of jabs at one another as their conversation grew animated. Their eyes engaged the space between them like invisible kissing tongues.

Barathiel glanced over to Ellie who as she sang watched it all as well. She raised her eyebrows apologetically. He nodded back with an embarrassed grimace on his face.

So that is why it was pretty little Ellie sent over to greet him. To soften the blow. His sister had taken on a woman lover and brought her home to meet the family.

Tereth, you are quite correct, old man. Indeed she has changed.

Barathiell reached in his pocket to find the pouch he kept there that held cured tobacco for mixed social occasions when the somniferum was likely to be frowned upon.

He walked slowly towards the couple as he packed his pipe to give Brietess plenty of time to make note of his approach. However, even as he lit the pipe, drawing smoke and exhaling it, and even as he stopped three feet in front of the pair, she did not so much as throw a glance his way.

The albino was a decade older than his sister, by Barathiel's estimation, so she could not have been a recent initiate like his sister. Where did she find this Sgoëthe woman?

The voice was that of Northern Isles nobility. Very fluid, but rhythmically hard, with stresses stilted and nasal. She gave him an appraising glance and smiled without breaking stride in her conversation with Brietess.

Finally, the albino lifted her chin and cast her lips firm and narrow.

"Brietess, I believe your brother has waited patiently long enough for you to make an acknowledgement."

It was as if Sgoëthe woman had broken a spell. Brietess' shoulders jutted up, and she blinked rapidly before turning away from her companion.

"Barathiel?"

"I haven't changed that much in eighteen months, have I?"

But she had. Her composure as relaxed and slackened as a roadhouse strumpet. Years of formal etiquette shorn like a calf by the Lady Wolves.

Her lips drew up under her right cheek while her brows made a scrutinising furrow. It was not a good look for Brietess.

"That little mustache," she finally answered. "Do you plan to keep it? You kind of resemble an actual man with it on you."

Thrown by the response that seemed so out of character for her, he hesitated too long.

She continued. "Well. All right, then."

"It's good to see you, Brietess," he finally said. His arms opened to welcome her.

"So, how was university these last three semesters," she asked.

"Brietess?"

Now his fingers dangled in the air.

The albino nudged Brietess in the nub of her back. She jolted and then her face softened. Brietess stood up and grabbed her brother by the shoulders. He let her in for a full hug.

"Barathiel, it is so good to see you," she said in a rushed whisper.

"Aye, Brietess. The last several months have not been so easy without you to lean on."

In the intervening silence, the Sgoëthe spoke, her accent now harsh.

"There now, -" she sipped from a delicate flute filled with pearlescent whitmead, "- we return your daughters back to you after the ordeal of Temple just as you remember them. Their person entirely intact."

She slunk her head down swinging her hair to the side. In a softer tone, "give Brietess a few months, she'll readjust to her rightful world. We always do, in some semblance or another to the person we were."

"Who might you be," Barathiel asked as he hugged his sister.

"Leresai Fervarryn, sieur. The roads of old Ninci are sketchy these days. I accompanied Brietess to assure her safe passage. I caught a few bruises in a scuffle with bandits."

Brietess unsuccessfully stifled a giggle. Leresai did not react, but merely continued.

"Your father was kind enough to furnish me a bed to repair before I move on."

The Fervarryn name was attached to both to the ruling lord of the second-largest of the Northern Isles, and to a prosperous port city, Tos- Fervarryn.

Yet, the woman in front of him, possessed infamy in certain circles. He didn't know much about her beyond that.

"I thank you," he said. "It isn't everyday the Old Meander receives a Sgoëthe princess. If the accommodations are less than just right, be sure to let me know."

"Ha," Leresai snorted, letting her regal bearing relax for the moment, at least, likely to make Barathiel feel more at ease. "I've long past from being a princess and into the dowager crone you see before you. The staff of the manor will gladly see the door swing at my backside soon."

"Your demand for hot water would embarrass the Empress," Brietess chided. "Poor Erotche having to haul a cauldron's worth of hot water just so you can have your warm bath, Leresai."

"If he insists on spying on me, I insist on the man's labors in return. I'm far from through with him, by the way. There may be other skills I'll require of that nasty little beast of burden."

"You're a dirty, old girl, Leresai."

Brietess turned to Barathiel. In a voice made lyrical if only to persuade, she said, "Barathiel, when we have a little privacy we'll talk more later, all right? Make your rounds. Tereth will worry over his precocious ones, otherwise."

He walked awkwardly away until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Uncle Thiel smiled warmly and led him away.

"Barathiel, you could use a drink."

A more well-spoken statement he could not imagine.