“It is very odd to discuss court matters with someone who knows none of the people I’m talking about.”

“That’s good though. It means you can say whatever you like without worrying about my telling them.”

Queen Calliope was back at Raeca’s little house, drinking tea and looking like she carried the world on her shoulders.

Raeca was trying to help with that, one short visit at a time. On this occasion, it meant braiding the queen’s hair out of her face and handing her a sweet-scented pot of herbs and clay to rub over her skin.

Brendis slept, wounded yet again, in the next room over. Calliope arrived only hours after Raeca finished putting the hero back together for the seventh time in as many months.

This time, apparently, he had found an ogre. Brendis was not having a particularly good winter.

Raeca was beginning to seriously worry that he had some sort of bad luck spell on him. It was possible that Calliope did as well, considering the troubles she inevitably seemed to have with her Court.

“This looks like pond-scum,” Calliope told her with a wry smile on her lips as she eyed the ointment. Despite her words, she began smoothing the greyish mixture over her face. “What is it for?”

“For relaxing you,” Raeca said with a smile as she tied off the simple braid with a bit of string. “It will make your skin very soft, but also, you can’t leave until it dries, and you wash it off.”

“You’re a filthy cheater,” Calliope laughed, and handed the pot back. “I do have to be back tonight. A number of problems have come up, and I suspect it will take royal authority to settle them.”

That brought Raeca up short, although she hid it by rising to put away the little jar with the rest of her ointments.

The journals Haroun brought her were… interesting. The Dark Sword was a dedicated journalist who wrote down everything he experienced over a dozen lifetimes and more than a thousand years.

His hatred for the queen knew no bounds. The woman in his journals was cruel and clever. She had lived as long as the other two, and perfected the art of ruling, and of manipulation. The few lives she wasn’t born in the noble class, she quickly married, and murdered, her way back onto the throne.

Brendis was another matter. Raeca was surprised to find that the Dark one seemed almost… sad on the rare times he wrote of the hero who inevitably rose to challenge him. Like it hurt to have to fight his former friend, over and over.

“What sort of problems?” she asked, burying her thoughts for now. It was impossible to take the Dark Sword’s journals as the unvarnished truth, but at the same time, they were what he saw as the truth. “Nobles?”

“Nobles,” Calliope said, and leaned back in her chair, cradling her tea between her palms. “A petty feud between several houses. I tried to diffuse it in my last life, but the Dark Sword came for me before I could truly bring peace.”

“I’m sorry,” Raeca told her, because she was, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. “What sort of feud?”

“Sons of their two houses decided to fall in love,” Calliope said, her lips now twisting with distaste. “Perhaps if one of them had been female, it could have been settled with a marriage, but now the Temple is involved.”

That didn’t sound good. The way she said it, with a sort of finality, made Raeca worry about the two young men.

“What will you do?” she asked slowly, and refilled the kettle with clean, cold water to give herself time to think. “Will you help them? They couldn’t help falling in love, could they?”

“I must satisfy he Temple,” Calliope murmured, and sipped her tea. The weight of her eyes fell between Raeca’s shoulders. “You disapprove? The Temple is very powerful. Even if the young lords’ families were in favor, and they are not, I would have to think of the greater good.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Raeca said honestly. She rummaged through her herbs until she found the ones she wanted. It was true that the Temple was powerful. According to the Dark Sword’s journals, that was largely the queen’s doing, and they considered her some sort of Gods-sent saint. “Can you not talk them around?”

“The young couple, their families, or the Temple?”

“Any of them,” Raeca said, and brought the kettle back to the table with her. “What will happen to the lords? It’s rare, but there are some who wed their own, isn’t there?”

“The Temple takes a very dim view of it,” Calliope said strictly, and looked down into her tea. “And their families are screaming for blood to soothe their wounded honor.”

“But you’re the queen,” Raeca tried to reason with Calliope and refilled both their cups even as the queen went to the sink and washed the now-dry mud off her face with a sigh. The potion did precisely as it was supposed to, and left her skin soft and flawless. “And you said a wedding might unite the houses. Do that.”

“You do not know of what you speak,” Calliope said sharply, straightening proudly under the slim circlet that never left her head. Suddenly it wasn’t the belabored friend who stood there, but The Queen. “You are nothing but a village healer, Raeca. Navigating my court is entirely beyond you.”

Raeca reeled back like she’d been slapped and couldn’t keep the hurt off her face. Until now, Calliope had always seemed to welcome her thoughts on the court and the nobles who ran it. It was so easy to forget that her friend was a queen, and not only a queen, but one with many years of experience settling matters of the court.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, eyes wide as Calliope stared her down. Shame made her hunch her shoulders and she dropped her gaze to the floor, reeling inside. “It just… love should be encouraged, shouldn’t it? It’s all that stands against the darkness, when it seems like sunrise will never come again.”

“You could not understand,” Calliope murmured, and smiled sadly as she softened again. She reached out and cupped Raeca’s cheek with one soft hand. “I’m sorry, my friend. I should not have snapped. I forget that you are very young. We may look of an age, but I have centuries of these little problems behind me.”

“It’s alright,” Raeca told her, and reached out to hug her friend gently. Calliope tensed, and relaxed almost before Raeca could notice it. “But please think on what I said. Love is what carries us through the hard times. Like you and Brendis.”

“My steadfast hero,” Calliope said, and turned her eyes on the room where Brendis slept, bandaged, but healing. She sank back down into her chair and lifted her tea once more. “I will think on it, Raeca. You may be young, but your heart is truer than you know. Guard that power carefully, lest someone learn of it, and seek to burn it out of you.”

“I have faith in my friends,” Raeca said, despite the chill that filled her stomach and sat there like an anchor. The words seemed very ominous. “Besides, you were right… I’m only a village healer. I don’t matter. Not really.”

“You matter more than you think,” Calliope murmured, and poured more tea for them both. “Enough of the dark and the sadness. The last time I was here, your shepherd friend was mooning over the pretty innkeeper’s daughter. Has he gotten up the courage to speak with her?”