Lisaykos, in her study

"This has been one of the longest days of my life," Lyappis joined me on the lounge on the north wall of my office that was closest to my work table. The first night bell had just rung.

"How was Aylem doing before she left for the Crystal Shrine?"

"She's very good at beating herself up," Lyappis fell onto the lounge and covered her eyes with her arm. She sighed. "She needs to realize that it's not anger that's the problem; it's what you do with that anger that's the problem. She's also too quick to assume insult when none is meant."

"Have you talked with Emily about Aylem yet?"

"No, she's proving adept at avoiding me."

"She's not comfortable with you yet and she doesn't do well when there are more than two or three Cosm around her. I live with her so I know that signs when she's stressed, and she's stressed right now. Tea?" I asked as I got up. "Your usual?"

"Please."

I got up and heated water at the sideboard, "I've got sugar now, from my daughter's first crop, if you'd like."

"I'll stick with my bogberry syrup, thank you," Lyappis chuckled. "My son has been spying on your daughter's beets."

"I know, I hear about it all the time," I smiled. My Katsa and her Sopno had a friendly competition going over the products of their adjacent holdings.

"Shopping tomorrow with your daughter in Gunndit?" I asked as I handed her a beaker of tea with a spoon of bog berry syrup.

"For the sake of the people who might be watching us," she sipped her tea with a frown. "I have no idea how she's going to manage to vet the garrison for any enemy plants while making it look like a shopping trip. She's vetting the garrison here right now. I hope she remembers to sleep. She's a crabby girl when she doesn't sleep enough."

"So that's where she disappeared to. I wanted to chat with her about other business." There was a light knock. It was Usruldes. I waved him in. He closed the door and then charmed it shut.

"Lord Usruldes," I began, "my staff..."

"...will mindcast you, if needed," he pulled down his hood and pulled off his face cloth, leaving the black scarf covering his hair.

"Ah, that explains it," Lyappis nodded, with some vexing fact settling into place in her mind after seeing my son's face.

"Revered One, Great One, may the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you," my son knelt on the carpet.

"And upon you too, son."

"So formal," Lyappis shook her head and grinned at me, "it's one of your family's defects, you know."

"I know," my son and I shared a smile, in complete and total agreement over this one small portion of existence. Good manners and proper address mattered. Lyappis shook her head at the two of us.

I thought about my grandson Troyeepay at the Manse but I immediately expanded that thought to Oyyuth and my youngest granddaughter and the current uncertain situation.

"She and Amoythoy are also at Manse Gunndit," of course, my son picked up my thought, "along with her brother and his family. I owe my sister for this. We pulled in some of our retired folks to help at the brewery while the entire Kas'syo family is out of town and some new employees at the brewery have to dye their hair. It's a good thing there are lots of things to do at a brewery that are out of sight of the public."

"You have both Kas'syo families at Manse Gunndit? I suspect Katsa is loving this," I smiled since it was safe in front of these two. "She's always wanted to see the Manse filled with family and children. Your favorite tea is the second box from the left on the third shelf up."

"Thank you, mom," he said, walking to the sideboard and selecting a beaker. "If I had more wraiths available, I would post them here and not even a bee would be able to get to the garden without being watched. With Kamagishi here, now I'm really worried. We have four high priestesses, the Princess, the Queen, and our Prophet, all in the south wing on the fourth floor of the Healing Shrine."

He walked an armchair over and put it down facing us. "Before you ask," he fetched his tea and sat down, "Emily found a way to reach the piping above the tubs in the bathing chamber from the space behind the drawers of her built-in bed. There is a trap door that is hard to see from the outside to access the roof from the bathing chamber. Meadow Vole, who was Emily's shadow this morning, alerted the entire network since Emily went where none of us could reach her for a time of 27 counted breaths. That's a lot for the wraiths, who are a particular bunch and vain about their skills. Each wraith takes two years just to train."

"I didn't want to know that about Emily," I sighed. The fate that I had wished on Foyuna, that Emily would explore the plumbing spaces of her shrine, had come back to haunt me instead.

"I don't understand why they are targeting the shrines," Lyappis shook her head. "It makes no sense to me. They have to know it angers the gods. What are they thinking?"

Usruldes shook his head, "Revered One, the king and the general downstairs, and I can't figure that out. If General Bobbo can't puzzle it out, no one can. He may be our best brain and he is stumped. I am frustrated and feel like I've failed to recognize something that's right in front of me."

"From what I hear from my son, you are no slouch," Lyappis studied my son. "So what do I call you there days, my boy? Irhessa? Lord Usruldes? Courier Hessakos? Master Spymaster?" She paused and smiled, "it was one of the most pleasant surprises of the last decade when your name popped up out of nowhere on the Coldtide promotion list at the end of last year. Your mother did miss you, but you know that, don't you?"

"It's not an easy story for me to tell, Revered One," he sighed. "Call me whatever makes you most comfortable. When my face is hidden, please, never use anything other than Usruldes. At this point, my identity might be the worst kept secret in the kingdom, but the king and the Shrine of Erhonsay have shifted resources to keep my family safe. My weakness is my family but we are dealing with it."

"Did you offer to retire?" she asked. She had been the wife of a Lord. She knew what the stakes were.

"Yes, more than once, and always sincerely."

"Did your wife know when she married you?"

"Oyyuth knew I was one of the king's spies when we had our hand-in-hand. She had the king's former spymaster tell her what the risks were. Her father and brother were also informed."

"I had no idea marrying a spy took such trouble," she looked surprised.

"No, it was because it was me," he admitted, "and because Imstay agreed to keep me out of my family's eye. Please don't give me that look, mother. So, Cadrees, my eagle bond, and I interrupted an ambush directed at our king not long after I left home. He recognized me and took me in. Then he decided I had the skill set to be a good agent. The king and I, we're tight. He calls me his little brother and he's always taken care of me.

"He's my closest friend. My life would be a shambles if not for Imstay. The king had the Kas'syo Brewery vetted without my knowing it, just in case the crush I had on Oyyuth was more than a crush. He made sure the king's intelligence network could accommodate his pet spy's halfhair family – all this because Imstay wanted to take care of me, not because I was one of his agents."

"It did not bother you nor the king that you married someone in the trades? Granted, the Kas'syos are merchant royalty, but still…?" Lyappis was curious but not judgemental.

"There's blood from the original line of Gampff if you go back four hundred years. Since then, the Kas'syos have birthed the occasional silverhair and every child born from that time forward has had some magic. The bloodline tends to breed halfhairs with very fine temperature control magic.

"Oyyuth can do things with temperature that I can't do, and I'm a bit vain about my magic. She and her brother both can examine one of those huge malting tanks and find every little spot where the temperature is too hot or too cold and fix it, even if it's as small as this beaker. It's one of the reasons their beers are so good. I find no reason to look down on the Kas'syo bloodline, and unlike many noble families, they're good breeders too. You know, Revered One, it's pleasant to brag about my lovely wife and her family, but this is a business visit," he smiled one of his friendly smiles at Lyappis. He had such a friendly face, unlike my own. "I want to speak to you about the Queen and the Prophet; but first," he looked at me, "I need to speak about the shrines, mother, especially this one."

"What about the shrines?" I frowned, wondering what he wanted to say.

"I know that the Crystal Shrine, the Healing Shrine, and the White Shrine currently have barriers up, but the King would like every shrine to put up a battle-worthy barrier until we know why they are targeting shrines. Imstay asked me to ask you to send the message out to the rest of the Convocation, to put barriers up to protect against air attacks and gate attacks."

That made me sit up, "are things really that bad? I thought Imstay was quietly cleaning out the ambush forces the Impotuans snuck in."

"We've taken down the groups in Kesmat, Rigdit, and Yuxvos," my son made a sour face, "Weirgos went badly. The attack started as soon as Moxsef left here and joined Imstay's mounted forces, just as we planned. Moxsef and Imstay took Lord Opyus and his household into custody last night but our opponents resisted. There are casualties on both sides. Mother, this is more serious than we thought. There were garrison members among the traitors. Imstay had guards fighting guards last night."

For the second time today, I swore.

"Opyus will be tried in the Well of Galt," my son continued. "About half the enemy and haup Weirgos attack forces escaped. We have done the first interrogations. Imstay is still in Weirgos mopping up. The bad news is that Raoleer and Huhoti were their targets. I have spoken with those two so they already know and have been advised to stay here near the Queen for now. They will use the excuse of building an artificial set of legs for Kayseo to stay here for a few more days."

"You didn't mention Esso," I pointed out.

"My nephew?" Lyappis sat up in concern. The current Lord Esso was her nephew.

"Lord Idriot, the Esso garrison, and the haup Esso household soldiers moved to take the enemy force of around one hundred men last night but they were gone. The one Impotuan soldier left behind to keep up appearances was apprehended but killed himself. A priestess of Erhonsay with the Esso garrison managed to get some information before the soul fled. Their target is Emily."

I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. I put my beaker of tea down before I dropped it.

"I suspected as much," my son said with a concerned look.

"What?"I snapped.

"You are truly fond of her," he rolled his beaker between his hands slowly. "At first I was worried that you kept her here because you wanted to take advantage of her, just like everyone else, like both the King and Queen. I no longer think that, given that you've made her extremely wealthy, you have only diverted a small amount of that income to benefit the Shrine of Mugash, not without justification, and you have not taken a single silver for yourself."

A wave of anger hit me that he could even think that I would take advantage of a patient under my care. It left as soon as it arrived because I had misjudged him. I realized that this was no child, though I gave birth to him. He had judged me with the cold hard eyes of the King's spymaster, as was his duty, and I passed his test. I understood, for the first time, just how puissant and formidable my son had become. My respect for him climbed.

"To be truthful," he continued, watching my reaction, "I'm extremely relieved to find that you have done so much to build Emily a firm financial foundation, with no strings tied to any shrine or holding." He smiled his approval "I'm glad to find that my mother is every bit the upright moral character I thought she should be. I must wonder if Emily knows how much you have looked out for her interests, or if she will appreciate it when she discovers it."

"I suspect she won't because she doesn't value wealth, not the way you or I would. She is unlike anyone I have ever known. Living with her has been an adventure, though I'm not sure what I was thinking when I first set Emily up in that used storage closet," I laughed. "I think it's a modest storage space in an inconvenient spot. Emily thinks it's a big room. Nevertheless, I admit she has grown on me. Someday she will leave and I know I will miss her. Isn't that odd?" I shook my head, not for the first time, over that strange Coyn. "I didn't realize it at the time, but I think we were both lonely people, and sharing a space has helped both of us."

"It makes me happy to hear you admit that," Lyappis remarked. "I've always thought you needed to socialize more. Please do not make a retort, my dear, about your duty as a haup Foskos. I've already heard it. It's one of your other family's character defects."

"No, I won't argue with you this time, dear heart. Irhessa, is Emily safe here? At the Shrine of Mugash?" I was feeling chilled, and not by the temperature.

"I have fully one-quarter of my wraiths deployed around Opa and Emily and the Shrine."

"Not Aylem?" I wondered.

"After long discussions with Ud," my son let out a long sigh, "I have concluded that Aylem may be indestructible under most circumstances. Ud taught her magic that will prevent arrows or thrown axes from penetrating her skin when she's awake. She can already protect herself from fireballs and attack magics. I have one wraith assigned to her bedroom, to wake her up if my agent detects the approach of danger. Aylem did not object. She knows her precognition is limited. I talked to her about it before she left for the Crystal Shrine this evening."

"I confess, I try not to think about how dangerous it would be for anyone to attack her," this was becoming a difficult conversation.

"Frankly, I feel sorry for anyone who attacks Aylem," my son said. "We should all be grateful that she is a person who feels some responsibility for her actions, because the alternative is just unthinkable, given her power." He leaned forward, "Mother, is it possible to have Emily sleep in a different room every night for the next few nights? Until we hunt down the enemy that was in Esso?"

That left me speechless.

"Emily will hate it," he frowned. "She doesn't like the cage she's in and now we're about to make it more constrictive. We will need to lay out all the facts for her to get her to agree. It's the only way I can see to manage her. What do you think, mother?"

"How many wraiths do you have on Emily?" I asked.

"Three, excluding the visible guards. Thank you, by the way, for getting Emily to stop playing dots and crosses on the window panes with the guards on the balcony. She has such a poor conception of her authority. The wraiths were terrified of refusing her because they needed to do their jobs."

"She thinks so strangely," I remarked. "In the place she came from, everyone was equal under the law. This makes it difficult for her to think that precedence is real because she believes – I do not jest – that precedence is a philosophical construct."

"What?" Lyappis couldn't help but squawk. I had forgotten to warn her about Emily being one of the reborn, and Aylem too. There was just too much going on.

"Lyappis, dear," I picked up my tea and took a defensive sip, "You need to know this and you already know that nothing can be repeated, but both Emily and Aylem are reborn persons."

"Oh!" I enjoyed watching her eyes grow round. "That explains so much," the look in her eyes was one of revelation. "How far back did they live?"

"Dear heart," I put my cup down, "they came from another place unlike our own, where there was no magic at all."

"What? How can people even survive without magic? The Coyn and no-height Cosm would be helpless without our magic," Lyappis protested, showing some of her old-noble-family attitudes.

"There were no Cosm in the place that Emily and Aylem lived," I remarked. "The people there spent their creative efforts to make marvelous machines and non-magical potions that do what we do with magic. They made things we haven't even imagined like ships that can dive underwater and boxes that can capture images better than any painting. You could go swimming with the fishes with a face like that, dear."

"Unbelievable," she shook her head. "The prophet's blindness toward everyday magic makes a lot more sense now. How did they ever manage without magic?"

"They didn't," I sipped my cooling tea, "they destroyed themselves."

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