Leah sits in the gardens and runs through the two dozen runes she has memorised, wondering when exactly this ‘homework’ is due. He just sort of…gave me the book, didn’t he? Am I supposed to tell him when I’m ready to be tested? Is ‘testing’ even a part of schooling here? Exams, yes, but tests?

The garden smells rich and warm and green, after the rain of the previous night. The pheasants scratch about, eating worms and fighting with each other over the prime hunting grounds. Their noises are a calming backdrop, and Leah finds her mind focuses better here than it ever did back home. So much for coffee shop studying or library studying, she thinks with a grin, leaning down to trail her fingers through the long, striped tail feathers of one of the males. It shuffles nervously but does not flee. It’s even better than studying in the park, with the pigeons around your feet and the wind in the trees.

There are no trees within the walls of the Hold, except for a dozen small potted ones; not quite topiary, but obviously pruned to keep them small and manageable. Leah can count four different species, though until they start flowering or producing fruit she can’t know exactly how many there are.

The trees outside, however, reach high up and create a constant susurration – Leah is certain that’s the only word that could do it justice; the scope, the volume, the dignity. Their leaves rustle in the wind, and their branches shift and creak. Birds fly by in clouds overhead, their wing beats a high-pitched flicker over the noise of the trees.

I’m not studying. She smirks and goes back to her book, pushing the noises and sights of the Hold to the background. She does keep a careful eye on the sun, however; her next lesson with Adan will be this afternoon.

Towards lunchtime, she drops the book off in her rooms and goes down to the mess hall for lunch – taking it and going, still upset by her earlier confrontation with the slinger.

Should I bring it up with Seffon? I don’t want to get the guy in trouble, but also, he did sort of single me out and aggravate the issue in the middle of a public venue. Actually, that’s a good point: if it was in a public venue, surely people talked about it? Surely Seffon’s heard about it by now?

She finishes her wrap by the time she reaches the courtyard, and finds Adan waiting at the far corner with John. Leah does a double-take, confirming it’s him, then keeps walking.

“Hello,” she says brightly, reaching out to clap his shoulder. “How’ve you been?”

John smiles and returns the gesture, though much more gently. “Better than you, apparently. How many times is it you’ve been teu the hospital now?”

Leah laughs. “I sincerely can’t count.”

John passes her a quarterstaff and a light wooden shield, and Adan picks up her own set. Leah looks between them curiously.

“The lieutenant asked me to translate,” John explains, picking up a training-sword and shield. “Only so much she can teach withou being able teu explain it.”

This much seems to be true, as the training commences. Adan will give a series of specific instructions that John translates, and Leah will adjust accordingly; always they are minute details, things that cannot be mimed, or at times things that would require the halting of a practice run to correct.

It is very different, Leah reflects, to be correcting your grip and your stance in the middle of a bout, than to pause the bout, correct, and resume. She’s quite right to have called him in.

The secondary reason becomes clear partway through, though not in the way Leah had anticipated; Adan calls John in to join Leah’s side.

“I thought maybe she’d make me fight you one-on-one,” Leah says, as they get into position. “Not with you.”

“Ju ã a defensev fieẽ,” Adan explains, with John translating. “Ju ny teu know ʁau teu fie besi somefon.”

“Like in a defensive wall,” John elaborates. “You’re always going to be between people, and that changes how you fight.

Leah almost goes to correct him – that no, she’s the only defensive fighter of the five, she almost never has to fight beside someone – and then it occurs to her that they are training her to fight with them, as part of the Hold’s defenders. She can’t quite decide how to feel about this. Nostalgic, maybe, but what for? I never actually fought with the five; just little things, before I figured out muscle memory…and I did it to kill blood-pardons. Innocents. Well, not innocents, but still.

She is distracting herself, she realises. She shuffles and gets into position and focuses on the training.

*

The three of them rest for a bit afterwards, sitting on wooden crates in the shade, passing around a canteen of cool water.

“I haven’t really checked up on how the Hold is doing,” Leah says, to John. “Are there still refugees?”

“There are,” he says, holding his hair off the back of his neck and fanning it; the sun beats down viciously. “Some went back teu their homes when they realised the fighting was likely teu stay in Valrin, and some others left after they heard abou the ceasefire, but most are still here.”

“I ought to be back on watch duty,” Leah says grimly. “I feel useless, sometimes.”

John laughs. “Not fighting like this yu shouldn’t. How come yu kept your memory loss a secre so long?”

“Because of how people would react. Those closest to me, especially.” Leah spins the shield back and forth, pensive. “And I wasn’t sure who to trust with the knowledge that I was essentially helpless.”

John nods sagely. “I think it would help people get used teu the idea of your being here, if they knew.”

Leah shakes her head. “Some people just don’t want to trust me.”

John sighs but does not try to push the point. “And what about the people from Valrin?”

“The five know.” Leah plays over their reactions in her mind. “They knew right from the beginning about my memory loss; I could never have hidden it from them.”

“And Jeno?”

Leah tenses a bit. “She knows. I didn’t tell her right away, because it would have been inappropriate – her parents were my employers, technically – but she would have guessed soon enough, so I told her.”

John nods thoughtfully. Leah waits for the inevitable question, but it doesn’t seem forthcoming.

“How widely do people know?” Leah asks, coaxing, not quite making eye-contact.

“About your memory? Not at all.”

Leah smirks. “No, about…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“The fac that you are ill-f – ”

“Is that a slur?” Leah asks sharply, before he can finish saying it. John’s eyes fly wide open, and he shakes his head.

“E’s jus what e’s called, where I’m from,” he says, slipping a bit further into Olues from stress or surprise.

“Well it’s not what I want to be called,” Leah says hotly.

Silence spreads between them.

“Ã ju teu taueng abou my?” Adan asks, eyes jumping from one to the other, nervous.

“Ua? No, ui?” John turns to her confused, and she waves it away.

“We’re talking about the fact I’m gay,” Leah says, staring John down. “Go on, translate.”

“She knows you are,” John says, shrugging it off.

“And is it a problem?” Leah asks, still looking only at him. “Is it weird?”

He shifts on the crate, and it skids against the flagstones a bit. “It’s odd to be open about it, is all.”

“Why?”

“Because some people think it’s a crime against the Gods, and some people think it’s a normal part of life.”

“And what do you think?”

John blushes bright pink.

“If people decide I’m insulting the Gods, what are they gonna do? Stone me to death?”

That takes him by surprise. “Stone?”

“Yeah stone.” Leah mimes throwing something at the ground. “Throw rocks at a person until they die.”

John’s face is horrified. “Who would deu tha?”

Leah shrugs and sits a little straighter on her crate. “It’s old-fashioned, but it used to be a common form of execution for criminals.”

“Where?”

Leah ignores him. Adan watches with worry and fascination, sipping at the canteen. She passes it to Leah, who accepts it without looking.

“If you’re comfortable being open about it, then good for you,” John says finally, standing up to leave. “I’m very happy for yu. But now people in the Hold are talking about it all the time, and it’s impossible teu get away from it.”

Leah’s forehead scrunches. Why should it matter to him that it’s being discussed? Is he super religious? Or is – oh my god he’s a babygay. She opens her mouth to start apologising, but he is already gone.

Adan watches him leave, then turns back to her. “I tau ju teu fẽ close? De ju have an argjumen befõ des, õ fas des d firs?”

Leah shakes her head and passes the canteen back. “I just made an assumption that turned out to be wrong. I’ve been avoiding him, and now I think I see that he’s actually been avoiding me.”

Adan’s face is blank, but she nods for her to continue.

“I guess if he’s in the closet, hanging out around me would make people wonder if he was gay too. Damn, I just lost one of my last friends in the Hold.”

Adan holds out the canteen, and Leah takes it back, though not drinking.

“Why are you not bothered by it?” Leah asks her, and Adan’s face remains blank. She squeezes her mind for all the Olues pronunciations she’s learned. “Ui ã yu nau…ui ã yu botherednau…bothẽdnau bi…” She gives up and gestures to herself.

Adan scoffs. “Ju treu jõself en fron of d Lõ, an tou a danzerous feun teu save hes lif. D Lady Sewheil appruves of ju. I know heu ju fẽ befõ, very fell. B heu ju ã nau es mõ emportan, an muce mõ empressev.”

Leah nods at this, not catching anything beyond “dangerous…save his life…Lady Sewheil approves…important…impressive.” She raises the canteen in a toast, and then immediately pulls it back down, making a sour face. Has he ruined toasts for me, too?

Adan mimics the motion empty-handed, then pats her on the shoulder a few times. She starts putting away the gear, and Leah helps, in silence.

They part ways with a friendly nod, Leah returning to fetch her book from her rooms, carrying it down to the garden for more reading. The greenery and the frequent watering make it a much cooler resting place than the training area was, even though the afternoon sun hits it almost directly. She sets herself up on her usual stone bench, and looks for where she last left off.

“Leah!”

Not a moment’s rest, Leah thinks, closing the book around her finger to mark the page. She looks around for whoever called her, and sees the west gates open, a friendly dark face smiling at her from on top of a cream-and-white horse. A smaller white horse follows behind, rider-less, tethered to the front horse’s saddle.

“Leah!” Solace calls again, waving and getting down from the saddle. “I found your horse!”

It takes a second for Leah’s mild shock at Solace’s return to transform into delighted recognition. The horse reacts faster; her ears perk up and she starts walking with a bouncy gait towards Leah, saddlebags jingling. Solace tries to hold her back from stomping through the gardens, but is too light to make an impact.

Leah gets up and rushes to the horse, stopping her before she can walk on anything important, laughing and petting her nose and cooing nonsense greetings.

“You been okay buddy? You hid out okay in the city?” Leah rests her face against Beeswax’s neck and the horse leans over to start nibbling her sleeve. “Yeah, you’ve been a hungry little hidey girl, haven’t you? You want snacks? You want a lie-down? C’mon, let’s go to the stable, get you all cleaned up and cooled down.”

Leah looks up to see Solace watching her with a highly entertained expression. “Is that how you talk to all horses?” she asks, detaching the lead of the second horse – the one lent to Vivitha, Leah realises – and walking it towards the stables.

“Why, how have you been talking to her?” Leah counters, prompting a patient chuckle from Solace. “Awn, little baby, has she been ordering you around? Does she give you snackies? I bet she doesn’t, no, Solace is a meany – ”

They hand off the horses to a pair of grooms, and Leah remains to watch from a distance, making sure that Beeswax is in fact safe and uninjured after her time in a city under siege. Doesn’t look at all bothered, dear thing. I ought to track down that fisherman and repay him, for keeping her safe all this time. How much time? How many days was she there, if Solace is just back here now?

“When did you leave Valerin?” Leah asks.

Solace, leaning against a post and eating a handful of fresh cherries from one of the saddlebags, shrugs. “I went back the morning after we left. Would have done earlier, but I needed to recharge.” She rubs her head. “Still a little groggy from that, actually. Carrying people with that spell is hard.”

Leah reaches over and grabs a cherry. “What did you find?”

“The citizens are out of their homes again, working the fields, for what good it’ll do. They’ve lost almost six weeks of growing time, from the burning.”

“Are the winters here so harsh?”

“Not long, but cold and dry enough to kill the crops.”

“Are there spells that could bring the crops back?”

“From being burnt?” Solace shoots her a look.

Leah shrugs. “What else is happening there?”

“Eschen’s still out and about. I only saw him once, and as soon as I did I found Beeswax and blondie and started running.”

“Oh?” Leah asks.

Solace hands her some more cherries. “He now knows two of my faces. That’s very bad news for me; I don’t like retiring them, and it takes a lot of research to make a new one.” She suddenly falls quiet.

Leah is about to push her for more, then sees why; Seffon is stepping into the stables, walking with Areiu. When the girl sees Leah she perks up and leaves her father’s side.

“Have you met Marble yet?” Areiu asks, stopping a foot in front of Leah.

“No, I haven’t,” Leah smiles and pats the kid’s head, looking around. “Where is he? She?”

Areiu reaches up for Leah’s hand and drags her to one of the stalls, where a small black horse with grey hairs flecking his ears and nose watches peaceably, chewing on hay. “This is my horse!” Areiu announces, proudly and loudly. The horse flicks his ears away from the noise, but otherwise does not react.

“Solace,” Seffon nods politely to the bard, who returns the gesture with a smile.

“Lord Seffon. What have I missed?”

“Much.”

Leah steps aside from Areiu, letting one of the stable-hands into the stall to saddle up the docile old horse. She watches Seffon’s face for any sign of recognition or realisation, but he seems too distracted by his thoughts.

“As have you,” Solace says with a sarcastically haughty look. “What news have you had from Valerin?”

“Very little, since the ceasefire four days ago. We had to leave in a bit of a hurry.” He ends by looking at Leah.

“Oh?” Solace asks, innocently. “Did our girl get in trouble again?”

“Only the usual sort,” Seffon says, dismissive. He approaches someone in the stable, wearing the armour of a militiaman, and discusses with him quietly. Solace waits, watching intently.

Leah turns aside to help Areiu get into the saddle; even standing on a barrel, she is not quite tall enough to manage it on her own. She looks doll-like, her curly brown hair a cloud around her face, sitting on top of a horse many sizes too big for her despite being barely larger than a large pony.

The militiaman leads his own horse outside, and mounts up once beyond the doors. Areiu follows, a very focused look on her face as she directs the horse out of his stall and into the open.

“Your timing is impeccable, Miss Solace,” Seffon says, turning back to her.

“I didn’t intend to find you here, sir,” Solace says with an apologetic shrug. “I was here to return Beeswax and the unnamed spare.”

“Kairon?” Seffon says, looking over to where the white horse is just being led into her stall. “What if Miss Cevenon needs to return?”

Solace makes a noncommittal noise, and holds out the cherries. Seffon looks at them in surprise. She waits until he takes one before speaking. “The occupiers are not letting anyone leave the city. A new boat had just arrived from Devad when I left, with some supplies for the city, but mostly with new soldiers.”

“When was this?”

“The evening before last.”

Seffon mumbles something that might be a curse. “We’ll know soon enough if the missives have reached the other nations. Our battalion should be able to lay low until then, if Eschen maintains his silence – which is in no way guaranteed.”

“Yes, I was rather surprised to see them there,” Solace says, eyes sharp. “Nine hundred mounted riders emerging from the forest must have given the Cheden force quite the scare, until they realised they were ‘from’ Devad.”

Leah’s eyebrows fly up. “Nine hundred?”

“And a convoy to feed them,” Solace says, nodding. “Although from what I saw, much of the food made its way into the hands of the city populace. How long do you think you can keep the ruse up?”

Seffon gestures for them to follow him; both women fall into step beside him, heading to the shaded area under the tower’s passageway.

“You are from Bair, yes?” he asks, once they are alone.

“As much as I’m from anywhere,” Solace replies, cautious.

“The last I heard, the current Master of the Tribunal is a certain Lev Edvellu, from the eastern expanse. Is this so?”

Solace seems taken by surprise. It takes her a moment to answer. “I haven’t been north of the river in a year, but yes, I know he’s still in power in the capital.”

Seffon nods, fingers buried in his hair but not yet nervously disordering it. “It might be necessary for us to have a Bairish translator, in a few days. My wife could fulfil the role if they sent a Gllythe representative, but that seems unlikely.”

“A representative? What would make Bair care about Seffonshold?”

“Not Seffonshold; the war.”

“Even less likely.” Solace waves a hand. “Bair has no strong feelings either way towards Cheden, and Volst has only ever been standoffish towards them.”

Seffon pauses, looking at her evenly; Solace seems to sense his seriousness, and stands a little straighter. “The war was orchestrated, by Cheden, with Devad’s collaboration. There is reason to believe it is a usurpation attempt.”

“Really? How exciting,” Solace says, eating another cherry and dropping the pit from the last on the ground for a pheasant to peck at. Seffon’s expression hardens. “Well, obviously bad, but if the other nations find out they will certainly be able to put everyone back in their place. This war is only ten days old, and has barely gotten started in terms of lethality or destruction.”

“They collapsed every bridge to the city,” Leah says, with some colour.

Solace looks her over appraisingly. “Yes, and burnt the fields. But the city still stands. In fact,” she turns back to Seffon, an eyebrow raised. “They left the city perfectly habitable. As though they wanted it nice and ready to be lived in.”

“For someone to live in,” Leah says, jaw going slack.

“Hm?” Solace and Seffon both turn to her.

“It’s one of the things Eschen said, before – ” Leah mimes the stab. “I don’t remember the exact words, but something about it being a lovely estate for someone to live in.”

Solace nods, satisfied. Seffon still seems to be taking it in.

“So they did plan to usurp, then?” Seffon asks, hand running through his hair all the way to the back, then down his neck. “Gods, of course. And Jeno has been confirmed, so they could even continue the ruse that it was a war and they’re just taking over Valerin ‘to be true to the marriage.’”

“Does that apply whether or not Jeno is alive, or even physically there?” Leah asks.

Seffon shrugs, and Solace nods. Both of them turn to Solace in curious surprise. “What, I’m a bard, I know the stories of old wars,” she says with a one-arm shrug. “It is better if she is there, but since the man they have leading the occupation has been her protector since she was a baby, or near enough, it would ring true for them to say they were doing it in honour of the late young Lord, until the future Lady Valerid was returned.”

“What about her parents?” Leah asks.

“Both aboard a ship, according to the gossip. Hiding from the violence, but unwilling to leave without their daughter. Apparently playing host to a certain noble prisoner.”

“The Baroness is still alive?” Seffon asks, looking at her sharply.

“Of course; she is alive to ensure Lord Valerid’s obedience.”

Leah brushes the hair out of her face and frowns in thought. “What happens to her if Cheden finds out that the other nations believe this war to be a usurpation?”

“Yes, and when will the other nations be told this?” Solace adds curiously.

“Two of the neighbouring Thanes have sent missives to all the countries of the Gulf. Bair should have theirs by now, but the non-magical ones may take longer.” Seffon smoothes down his hair futilely. “Without the bridges, the Valerid estate is a decent choice of a stronghold, to wait out a siege. The invaders might choose to hide away inside, if they believe that the rest of Cheden and Devad’s forces combined could actually beat the forces of Volst, Bair, and Algi.”

“Could they?” Leah asks.

“Possibly,” Seffon says, “Depending how quickly they act.”

“And the Baroness?”

Seffon hesitates, watching Leah’s face. “Why?”

“Because Lord Valerid wasn’t originally going to entrust her escape to me. I asked for the responsibility, and the Baroness backed me. The other guard with us was killed by Kain, and I had almost gotten her to safety, but then Eschen tracked me down.” Leah wrings her hands, then holds them firmly at her sides. “The Baron thought that I’d escaped Eschen the first time because Eschen let me escape…that he’d ensorcelled me, and I was going to hurt his family like Jeno had. If the Baroness dies, he’ll believe that’s what happened.”

Seffon sighs. “Why do you care about what Lord Valerid thinks, after what he did?”

“I want the Baroness safe,” Leah says firmly. “And I want Eschen to fail. That’s all.”

Solace takes her hand, briefly. “We can make sure of that. Lord Seffon.” She looks back up at him, and nods formally. “If Bair sends a representative to investigate the claim of usurpation, I will go as translator. I may not be in good standing with the Council of the south, but the Tribunal likes me.”

Seffon flashes a brief smile. “I appreciate it, Miss Solace.”

“Drop the ‘Miss,’ if you don’t mind,” Solace says cheekily. “I don’t like titles.”

“As you will.” Seffon nods.

“And if Algi sends a representative?” Solace asks, pointedly.

He looks confused. “Do you also know Algic?”

“Not my point.” Solace tilts her head to Leah. “They’ll recognise her, for sure. How are you going to keep her hidden from Algi? Or, more specifically, how are you going to keep hidden from them the fact that their favourite hero has been replaced?”