In an instant, the headquarters were buzzing with activity. We were moved to an adjacent room that I later realized was in a separate house with a common wall with the base. We got each a wool blanket to cover us and keep warm, and somebody gave me a plate with sandwiches. I struggled a bit with the boy that brought the plate as he wanted to keep the plate and me only to take from it. It did not make any sense. I did not realize I was that hungry until I had that plateful of sandwiches in front of my eyes.

Previously I didn't want to stay, but Thiara was clinging to me; she didn't want to leave my side, not until her father erupted into the room. When she left me, I was a bit ashamed because I felt relieved that I could finally concentrate on my plate of sandwiches.

Her mother entered a moment later. I think she was told to wait as they feared an assassination attempt, but obviously, she could not stay. A very agitated guard entered the room behind her.

It was not known that this was the assassins' guild headquarters, but being called in the middle of the night in a dubious location was enough to raise a lot of alarm bells.

I left them the joy of the reunion, continuing to chew happily at my sandwiches. Who thought of making many small different sandwiches? There must be a gourmet in this house! As Thiara was crying in her mother's arms, I realized that I could not just dump her there and leave. I was not sure how far I could rely on her to explain the situation. How much did she understand from the happening?

I sighed and took her father to the side. Elise came closer to join our conversation, and I did not protest.

I held my plate in one hand, and I grasped his biceps with the other to the distress of his guard, then looked into his eyes:

“There is something that you need to be aware of. Maybe we should talk in a smaller group?”

I eyed the two guardsmen that accompanied him and the two assassins that were here to keep the balance. He produced the expected answer whilst the guardsman shot me an angry look.

“I fully trust my captains!”

I sighted. I munched the last sandwich down whilst he was watching me expectantly. I feared he would say that, but could you really trust them in any conditions? Because these were not normal conditions. I would put as much trust in them as I would put in the two assassins, namely none, but in the end, they all already saw Thiara. I put the empty plate with regret to the side and licked my fingers.

As he did not add anything, I continued my talk:

“I fear it will not end here. I fear the shit only now starts!”

He raised his brows, wondering:

“What do you mean?”

I spit it out in a short sentence:

“She is practically a fugitive queen of the Golden Empire and will be chased using all means available to the empire.”

There is only one emperor; the wives are queens; this is their protocol for whatever reason.

I raised my eyes to look into his. Damn, he was taller than me:

"Do you understand what this means?"

After a long silence, he gasped:

“This is not possible!”

I pushed the air out of my lungs in a short snort. Do I need now to convince him?

“Unfortunately, yes. She can confirm it." - I pointed at Thiara and added - "The witch from the mountain has broken her will, and she was probably married in her church.”

The poor man repeated himself, still not able to breathe freely:

“This is not possible!”

I turned to Thiara. There was that question that nagged at me for some time:

“Is it true that she has a lich in her black church?”

Instead of answering, she started to cry louder. Ahm, OK...? Not what I wanted. Probably she was not ready to answer; some people take longer to recover. I looked guiltily at the marquis and continued:

“She was possessed; it is not she who accepted the marriage but the ghost; that is why I could break the link. Possibly the witch wanted to place a spy in the emperor's court. I don't know; maybe the thing with the ghost was agreed with the emperor. The problem is that both are now angry and probably looking after her.”

Her mother raised her head, afraid.

“Is she still... possessed?”

The marquis seemed to understand more about the empire:

“You could break the link? But how?”

“I've cut her hand after she has been exorcised” - I nodded to the mother - “she is of her free will; she is not possessed now.”

Mrs. de Hollybrun was shocked:

“You can do that? Are you sure it was done properly?” - she repeated what I said - “She has been exorcised? Who has done that? Are you sure of what you say? I don't think our high priest could do that; he would need the archbishop to come...”

Whilst her father was now hyperventilating.

“Whaaat? You've cut her hand?!”

I sighed. Somehow my words do not have the desired effect of calming them.

“As you see, her hand is regrown now. I didn't want to cut the heir's hand; I feared that might lead to war...”

“The Empire's heir was there? Are you sure?”

They were getting more and more excited in a negative way. Outright panicking. I did not know that limb regrowing was such a big deal. I shrugged.

“Duh, how else could she marry the emperor? Styxa was really pissed off; she had sent her dragon after us. As it was searching, it scorched the forest.”

One of the captains jumped at me:

“Please, don't say that name! She will hear you!”

The other only wondered.

“You mean that the land towards the mountains is burned?”

I nodded to him, ignoring the other:

“Yes, a big chunk of it was burned with hellfire.”

Mrs de Hollybrun covered her mouth.

“Oh, dear! What about the farms?”

I shrugged:

“I don't know.”

The marquis jumped overall questions, taking my word for what I said, asking directly:

“What should we do?”

I sighed again. We were finally there:

“If you ask me, the best is if she dies.”

They looked shocked at me, at first not understanding.

“I mean, there was an attempt to save her, and she died in that attempt. Nobody has seen her since.”

Thiara looked a bit alarmed at me, but I continued:

“You could sponsor a girl from your domain to go make her studies somewhere else? I don't know, in a city far, far away?”

Her father was not convinced.

“But that would mean to separate us!”

I raised my shoulders. As my belly was now full, the stress and adrenalin gone from my veins, I was suddenly feeling tired and wanted to sleep. Now, when I think about it, it was a too big plate, probably the plate with sandwiches was meant for all, not only for me. Yes, there were small tellers in a corner. Ah, whatever! I covered my face with my hands for a long yawn. This whole mess was getting wide over my head.

“That crazy old man that sits on the Golden Throne had seen her only through the eyes of his avatar and was waiting for her to come to him yesterday late evening. She did not. Her escort was killed, his heir wounded and bounded, and his wife did what no other Golden empire queen did. She escaped.

What do you think will happen when he finds out she is here? Is the kingdom strong enough to defend her? Or will the king send her well-packed with a lovely rosy ribbon and a strong guard? Maybe some additional wedding gifts and best wishes for the nuptial night? She is still dressed with the scraps from her bride's dress. I guess some party was cancelled in the Golden City yesterday night.”

“Stop, stop, stop!”

Mrs de Hollybrun put her hands over her face.

The marquis started protesting:

“The king would never...”

“Oh, stop it, Henry! This is exactly how it will happen! This miss... miss..”

Elise grinned:

“Lady Cala”

Mrs de Hollybrun nodded:

“Yes, lady Cala seems to know better the court than you do, Henry. Don't be naive! The empire has many armies, and the king is delighted that none comes this way. He will do all he can to keep it this way. You cannot even think bad for him because of that. What else could he do?”

She came to me.

“I did not yet thank you!” - she then embraced me - “please come with us to our residence! We need to clean you both, let you eat and sleep, and then we will think about what we shall do. We need first to reward you!”

Even if my heart jumped at the word reward, I shook my head. Is Cala so predictable?

“Not good. Even now, too many people know she is alive. The longer you postpone a decision, the worse it will be as more people will know about her. I made an error bringing her here, but my mind was not working right after the whole mess.”

I sighed and looked at Thiara. Standing there in her scraps covered with a blanket, after being scorched by that spell, after being beaten and shaken, she still looked beautiful.

“I don't know, maybe it is better to go back, girl...”

She shook her head, afraid, with wide round eyes looking at me, searching for more cover under her mother's arm. Where is that bitch that was screaming at the maids?

“Not everything is bad if you do it. The Golden palace is really nice. I was once there. As a high guest. The queens walk happily through hundreds of rooms; there are terraces with a terrific view over the Golden City; they have many different baths, saunas, rooms for games, rooms for pleasure, rooms for dining, slaves at disposition to fulfil their wishes. All you need to do is satisfy that old man maybe one night. Maybe not even that.”

Her parents were looking alarmed at me.

“Are you really asking her to do that?”

She mumbled in reply:

“But that would be a prison? A golden prison!”

I nodded to her:

“Yes,” - then I turned towards her father - “I am not asking her to do that. I only try to tell her the options. The other option is perpetual flight. Endangering the ones you love and care about. That can be worse than a prison...”

One of the captains wondered:

“Do you think it would be so? Are all queens happy there?”

I sighed.

“Happy? All? I don't think you can link the word happy with that place. Acceptance? Yes. Complacency? Yes. I met there several hundred queens. I mean, I have not talked to each of them, but I saw them and talked to a couple. I don't know a lot about that place. Children are taken from their mothers at seven to be raised as what they would be, soldiers, generals, accountants, governors or vezirs. They sometimes are allowed to visit their mothers. There are some darker rooms below. I heard that sometimes the emperor has strange wishes. Sometimes painful, but most things can be healed.”

“I don't want to go there!”

She raised her head timidly, looking at me, but there was determination in those eyes.

“You do have now two, maybe three options. First, you go back to him with the agreement of the family. You make a kind of a party there and hope to survive. Maybe it comes out good. Or you stay home and hope nothing happens. If an army comes, you hope the city fights for you, the king supports you, and nobody sells you for a handful of gold coins. Or... you go. You go as far away as you can; you hope to be a step in front of your followers because there will be some if you are not dead. That's why it would be good if you were dead, else you'll have a bounty on your head. Have you ever been to Serenity?”

“Serenity? The mythic city?”

“It is a mage city on the other known continent. Andwana.”

“It exists?”

“Oh, yes. A large fjord splits into two arms in front of the city. The city runs up that mountain in the middle. Beautiful, wonderful city. Many rocks are made of pure crystals. A lot of them with magic qualities. You can go there and learn magic. It is the place where all great mages go to learn. Or, if you do not like magic, there is also another empire on that continent. Constancius, the anti-magic emperor. Another crazed that hates magic, but his empire is even bigger than the Golden empire. He has great art schools in the capital. What was its name... Constancia?”

The marquis looked alarmed at me. Probably because I mentioned magic so casually. I did not care. I was really tired. I badly needed sleep.

I yawned, and the blanket fell from my right shoulder, hanging only in the spikes on my left shoulder. A piece from the carriage door fell.

I looked at it, and it had a little gem. A little black gem on it. White Flower whispered:

“A tracking gem!”

“Fuck! Styxa knows I am here! Fuck!”

They looked alarmed at me. The captains seemed more than embarrassed; I wonder why?

“No, not Styxa. That carriage belonged to the empire. That is a tracking piece from that door. We were lucky it was not Styxa; else, we would not have been able to escape. The problem is the emperor knows where you went.”

I bowed down and collected the piece with the blanket waving beside me.

“This is a tracking gem that was in the carriage's door. As I broke the door with the shoulder, it got stuck in my shoulder's armour. The carriage did belong to the empire, so maybe it is the empire, not that sorceress, who would be able to track us. Probably somebody is already on the way. It needs to be destroyed.”

“Not easy to destroy; you need a very high temperature. Magic fire would do it.”

“Are you sure it is a tracking gem? We could call our specialists to examine it?”

I turned, the blanket flagging in the air behind me. I tried to grasp it to cover me again.

“It is a tracking gem. I am sure. The best would be to send it with somebody away. It could be that they do not think about tracking it. Why would we take the gem? But if somebody thinks to check where it is, he finds it did move, and that's where problems will come.

Elisa offered:

“I'll take it to the furnace!”

White Flower thought it would be too dangerous to let her do it here:

“No, she should not do it. I can destroy it, but not here. We do it outside!”

“No. I'll take it and destroy it. Better to do it out of the city. I'll leave now.” I turned to Thiara and her family.

“I wish you luck; choose wisely!”

I bowed slightly and left.

It felt somehow satisfying to let somebody else decide. Not my problem now.

An assassin escorted me whilst the other remained with Elise and the marquis. The blanket slipped from my tired fingers and flagged again behind me like a cape. The two parts of my jacket hanging from my arms made me look almost majestic in the semi-obscurity.

I sighed. I want to go to bed.