Prince Salazar is blubbering and wringing his hands. A cluster of Quellac retainers try to soothe him, fanning him, patting him, murmuring platitudes like a flock of hens with an errant chick. A single advisor in a powdered wig clutches his arm, talking low and urgent. The prince's eyes screw up into an expression of agony as he listens, the centre of his own tiny maelstrom of melodrama.

Jenkins watches with great interest, as do I. I had been promised dull discussions about turnips and cattle, and debates about the value of doubloons to florens. This is much better. My mother would adore this front side view of aristocracy behaving badly. Perhaps I should bring her to the capital? But no, her awe would wane in an afternoon and then I would have an obnoxiously opinionated skull on my council.

The prince's advisor's performance crescendos with a virulent slap to his charge’s cheeks. He grabs the prince by the shoulders and screams in his face: "Remember your duty, my lord!"

This seems to sober the prince up. He stops sobbing, composes himself, and turns once more towards my throne. As his eyes land on me, he breaks down again with a wail.

"I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't," he bellows like a duck being strangled. My fingers twitch.

"Excuse me," I call.

I am ignored.

"EXCUSE ME!"

My voice rattles off the rafters, echoing through the hall in a rolling thunder. My draugr courtiers and soldiers jump, Jenkins spits, his ears flat against the sides of his head, eyes narrowed. The room quiets at last. The prince looks at me with eyes like greasy poached eggs.

"Thank you," I say, "much better. Now, your highness. There seems to be some misunderstanding. I have no intention of marrying anyone. This is a meeting to discuss matters of commerce. So there is no need for this...for these..."

"Theatrics," says Lily.

"Theatrics, thank you. So you can calm down right this instant." I lean over to Roland. "Perhaps the prince would like a nice cup of tea? Or some mulled wine?" Roland rushes off, and I turn back to the prince. "Whatever, you need, just please stop that wretched noise you are making my ears ache." The entire trade delegation looks at the side of my skull. "Metaphorically, speaking."

"Oh thank the gods," says Prince Salazar, slumping in relief. "You mean you still want to trade? Mother and father said you would only consider it with an alliance of marriage."

"No!" I say. "Whatever gave them that idea?"

I look over at Dunwiddy and Rachel, who both look as perplexed as me.

"Nothing to do with us," says Dunwiddy. "I swear on the Whisperer's rusted balls."

The prince's advisor alone does not seem cheered, and continues to dance on the stop in abject agitation.

"Will your majesty not reconsider marriage to the prince?" he says to me. "He is but a foolish youth, but the King and Queen of the Isles are eager to establish bonds of blood."

"Herald!" cries the prince, "what betrayal is this?"

"If he is a foolish youth," I say, "what possible use could I have for him? As for blood, as you can see I have none. Enough of this. Let us talk of trade matters. I have particular interest in silks and-"

"Your majesty," interrupts Herald the advisor. He is sweating profusely. "We brought with us many gifts, for the betrothal. If you find Prince Salazar wanting, perhaps you can accept them as an apology, and as a sign of our two nations closer connection?"

I stare at him. Is he just nervous? Or is this just how people behave at these occasions? I glance at my council, but then it occurs to me that none of them are aristocrats, just peasants and adventurers I plucked off the street to serve. They know as much as me about the vagaries of the ruling class.

"Fine," I say. "I just want to move this along."

"Yes, yes, of course!"

He bows so low his forehead almost scrapes the sand. A single, enormous blob of sweat drips from his nose to land with a plop on the floor.. With shaking hands he gestures and some of the delegation drags forward several metal bound chests, placing them before my throne. There are three chests. Each is large enough to hold a person, and from the grunting and heaving of the delegation, quite heavy.

"Your highness," says Harold. "Please do the honours."

Prince Salazar steps forward, and reaches out his hand for the first clasp.

"Stop," I say, sharply. The prince freezes, looking up at me enquiringly. "Let Harold do it."

The Quellac delegation have, of course, been checked for weapons, and none of them appear to be clerics but still, I am suspicious. I cast my eye over the innocuous ranks of lackeys and administrators. Only a fool would try to assassinate a lich, but well, the Bright One's followers have constantly shown themselves to be several hymns short of a divine picnic.

Prince Salazar bows, clicking his heels together neatly before returning to his place, while Harold walks forward on shaking legs. The advisor's face is a treat to behold. Curdled puddings have looked more savoury. What could be in there? Folded up tiny clerics? An explosion of arrows? Something will burst out of those chests, at this point, I have no doubt.

Harold undoes a complicated series of locks, and throws back the lid, cowering away. I flinch, but there is nothing within but samples of material, and a couple of goblets. Not even particularly fine ones. I am almost disappointed. Maybe the man is just ill.

"What has gotten into you, Harold?" demands the prince.

Not my imagination then.

Harold does not reply but walks unsteadily to the next chest. He repeats this performance there. As he throws back the lid, the chimes of a dozen silver bells cut through the air.

A burst of golden light washes over me, bathing the air in a blistering radiance so bright everything disappears. Jenkins vanishes with a yowl. Instinctively I throw myself over Lily. The heat is so intense, I can feel the clothes melting from my frame, can feel the old lady's heart thumping in terror.

The light fades.

I turn with a curse. The evil chest itself remains, smoke curling upwards from the blackened interior, scorch marks flared out in front of it. Harold's desperate hands still clutch the edge, burnt off at the stumps. The rest of him is ash. No one else in the Quellac delegation has been harmed, the focus of... whatever it was forwards, although several of their hems are on fire. The prince stands, smoking gently, his mouth making an 'o' of shock.

Lily is fine, swearing loudly, thanks to my intervention. Rachel managed to cast some protective spell over herself and Dunwiddy, and both of them were partially obscured behind the heavy table anyway. Of course the curse, or whatever it was, was aimed at the undead. I myself am mostly fine. My bones are scorched, and my fine dress remains only at the front.

My draugr servants have not got off so lightly.

Every one of them seems to have been obliterated. Roland, thankfully was outside the hall. He appears at that moment with a tray of tea for the stupid prince and pauses in the doorway, aghast at the scene within.

Anger rises in my throat at the thought of how close I had come to losing him.

"Bar the doors, Roland," I say in a remarkably calm voice.

The Quellac delegation start to scream, as their brains catch up with their bodies.

"SILENCE!" I yell. "Sit your arses down at my table all of you. Right now. Or if you can't manage that sit on the floor."

Most of them sit on the floor. A few of them continue to scurry, until I threaten violence. They all sit but two who are too far gone in the grip of hysteria. I punch one in the head, none too gently, and Rachel clubs the other with her staff.

"Are you going to kill us?" wails the prince.

"It seems to me," I say to him, returning to my throne. "That you were just as much a target of this assassination attempt as I."

A peculiar expression crosses the prince's face.

"Why would they- but why- they would never-"

"Roland, dear, would you send a servant to fetch me a fresh dress?" I call. Being half naked in my bones feels quite indecent. I eye the last chest that sits unopened and potentially deadly in its circle of soot. "And Roland - I would prefer if you stayed away in case there are any more surprises."

Roland nods and runs off, anxiety etched in every line of his undead body.

I turn to the trade delegation, and smile pleasantly. They all shuffle backwards.

"Now. Does anyone have anything they would like to confess?"

"I know nothing!" screams Prince Salazar.

"That we have gathered," says Lily, who has recovered herself enough to talk. "Your majesty look!" She points a scorched knitting needle at the remains of the delegation. We all turn to look, just in time to see a woman at the back swallow some sort of elixir. The crowd parts, and as I watch she tumbles backwards, foam frothing from both corners of her mouth. Her body convulses on the floor. She is dead a moment later.

"Bring her here," I say. "That saves a lot of trouble."

"Why would they try to kill me?" shouts the prince. "My own parents!"

"You are second in line to the throne?" asks Rachel.

"Let's not waste time in idle speculation," I say. "I'm sure Harold can fill us in. And- whoever this was." I gesture to the corpse of the woman, who is dressed in Quellac servant's attire.

"They are dead!" says the prince.

"Not an issue," says Lily.

"How much research did you do?" asks Dunwiddy, "Before you set sail for Fairhaven?"

The prince blushes.

There is not enough of Harold left to bring him back as a draugr, so I bring him back as a ghost. He comes back pale, translucent and angry.

"Ungodly lich!" the ghost shrieks, pointing one accusing finger at me. "Foul, evil, disgusting-"

"Yes, yes. Tell me what was the point of this, and then I will eat your soul and we can all have some peace while you live for the rest of eternity in torment in the Whisperer's lands."

As in life, the advisor starts to shake.

But his soul is mine now and he cannot resist my command.

"Their majesties hoped to rid themselves of two problems at once."

Prince Salazar gasps.

"The prince was a sacrifice?"

"An ill-favoured scion," says Harold. "A disappointment, and a failure."

"You cad!" shouts the prince. "You absolute cad!" He breaks down sobbing.

"If the chests the god-touched provided killed you," continues the ghost of Harold, "all well and good. If not, the death of the prince in your throne room would convince the surrounding nations that you are not to be trusted, and that war should be waged to exterminate you."

"The clerics then. A dastardly plan, indeed." I have to raise my voice to be heard over the prince's expletives. "Were any others involved in the scheme?"

The ghost points to the dead servant, and one other, a man in courtier's clothing.

He tries to run but I steal his soul before he can make it to the door. I raise him and the dead servant as draugr and repeat the questions. The pair have little new information to add, merely confirming my suspicions that the Bright One's clerics seemed to be at the heart of this.

Traitors dealt with, I lean back in my throne and consider.

"The plan hinges on the prince's death," says Lily.

"What should we do with him?" asks Rachel.

"They expect me to be a bloodthirsty monster incapable of rational thought."

"Will we declare war?" asks Dunwiddy. "This feels like an act of war."

"But that is what they want," I say, eyeing the stupid prince, who is still being incredibly loud.

"I can't believe this," says the prince. "They tempt me here with paintings of attractive liches, and then try to murder me! My own parents!"

"Let's see it," I say.

"What?"

"The painting. I want to see it."

"Oh." The prince snaps his fingers, and a still functional retainer rushes forwards with a canvas roll. Prince Salazar unfolds it with a flourish and presents it to me.

I study the image in silence.

Well, almost silence, Dunwiddy is attempting to suppress his chortling with limited success. To say the image is flattering is an understatement. It is a full-bosomed, fully-fleshed version of me that bears very little resemblance to reality. There is ample cleavage. The hair is the most accurate - starry white and full, but the rest is clearly the work of an addled mind. While the lich represented within is pale, there is a hint of rose in those full, smiling cheeks. Her eyes are not so much lurid glowing pits of sapphire despair as striking blue. There are no visible bones, and no visible stitching.

"I can see your confusion," I say after a while.

I settle back in my throne for a while to think, watching the remains of the Quellac delegation try to gather itself. My council watch me, knowing better than to interrupt.

"Well this is very disappointing," I say after a while. "I had high hopes for my kingdom. But perhaps it was to be expected. It is too soon for the human population of other nations to accept us."

"But we need those trade deals," says Rachel, "before next winter preferably."

"I know," I say, rapping my fingers on the edge of the throne. What to do. "Make no mistake. If we are attacked I will defend my country. I have no wish to be an Empress but if the Quellac Isles wishes to be subjugated I will oblige."

The prince's eyes bulge.

"But I will not seek war." I turn to my council. "Perhaps I need to seek trade agreements in other places? Where the citizens are less prejudiced against magic?"

"Do you know of such a place, your majesty?" asks Dunwiddy.

I smile. "I foresee some issues that will need ironing out. But yes, I know of a place."