"Our biggest challenge is food," Sholu says didactically. He's loving this, I realize; sitting at the head of the table, every eye in the room on him, every word he utters mistaken for prophecy. If I'm honest, it would please me immensely if what he said were exponentially stupider. He's good at this, like he's been doing it all his life. They work together with a convivial familiarity my family was never able to master, though we all shared the same blue blood.

They're thieves, whores, and liars. Cowards, anarchists, mercenaries. And now, by some mad twist of fate, I'm their queen. Esaroth Ysana called me his lady and made a chivalric promise to defend my honor, like he was a knight of old and I, the damsel tucking a handkerchief into his pocket as a sign of favor. Even if Lord Shirarka is right and he's merely taking any excuse he can to pick up a sword, having a vasayastisi volunteer as my champion is absurd. I wish I had a coin that I could flip to decide whether I should laugh or cry.

"Throwing bread at their heads, as Lord Ysana so eloquently put it, won't fix everything, but food is a major stabilizer. It will lessen the pressure and lengthen the fuse, so to speak. The great news," Sholu says, tapping his hand against the wooden desk for emphasis, "is that we have access to import sources that the Amarins never did. Dogmatic inflexibility and an arrogant refusal to engage regimes that they considered distasteful cut us off from the south and its abundance for decades. The Macchonese waterways have been discounted due to aggressive piracy, and Yukkaita's so hostile that they bristle at us transporting goods through neighboring Brekka, let alone taking the more direct route through their own land. We've been stuck dragging everything down through the Suumari flatlands, or getting it from the far east via Kama, which has set absurd tariffs knowing we'd rather pay them than dare the lawless southern seas." He looks so confident at the helm, so natural. It infuriates me.

"Well, we don't have to work within those limited parameters anymore. The Yukkaiti will engage with us, as will the Macchonese pirazarin," Sholu says, referring to the pirate-barons ruling the southern waters. Men and women my family would have shot on sight, now apparently our allies. "And if we can move food through Macchon and Yukkaita, our supply issues are cut by half. It won't be enough to put a feast on every table, but it will be enough to keep our people from starving. The bigger issue, really, is distribution; how can we get the food where it's needed before it spoils, and do so consistently?"

"Have we considered using the noraya's distribution channels to get food out?" Rillian Aidha asks, looking contemplative. They have networks in place that are startlingly efficient, they have existing contacts beyond our borders- like you said, why build something new when we have perfectly good infrastructure already in place?"

"The Shotori are ours, but what of the rest of them?" A man in a teal suit just as ugly as Sholu said it would be asks. Lord Taban, I presume. "For this to work, we'd need at the very least the Chalnori noraya covering the northwest. Ideally, we'd have the cooperation of the Asrakali noraya and access to their southern networks as well."

Lord Ysana looks thoughtful for a moment before his eyes light up. He leans forward and catches the eye of a woman sitting several seats down. "Dakara," he asks, "you still have contacts within the Chalnori Noraya, don't you?"

"Of course, pet," A dark eyed, dark haired woman, obviously not Shikkan by birth, says. Her lips are full and red and draw out every syllable in a pleasing way. "My half-brother is the nordeme's right hand." I snort at the reminder that the noraya have given their leaders a version of our own titles. Nordeme, nordizsa.

"Jana Semiroth is a reasonable man," the rosy-faced woman called Dakara pronounces in a mild accent- Brekkan, I think. "He will treat with us if we make it worth his while."

"Could they cease hostilities and turf wars with the Shotori long enough to get anything done?" Miromi Chayal asks. "It sounds like a bad joke to me. A shotori norayasti, a Chalnori norayasti, the Shao Asha, the Macchonese pirazarin, and the vasayaste walk into a bar..."

"The creativity is worthy of applause, but I agree with Miri," a lord who's not spoken yet adds in a gravelly baritone. "There's too much tension, too much bad blood. It won't work."

"We're sitting in the Amarin's palace, having won a war against them in only one night," Ahalia Kozu replies. "Have a little faith, Larken."

"Faith is messy. We can't afford messy," another lady adds nervously.

"And we can't afford to pay what it will cost to have two or three of the largest gangs in Shikkah working tagteam. They're used to killing each other."

"No, they're just used to killing," Rillian interjects. "For money and resources. They're mercenaries. They'll work together if we can pay their price."

"It'll be a king's ransom," someone laments.

"It'll be a permanent seat on this council," the dark-eyed Dakara announces simply.

"Many of us have ties to the Noraya, but to have a norayasti king sit among us-"

"That is the price they will demand," Dakara insists. "It is not unreasonable."

"If we're having elections in five years, it is."

"Compromise," she reiterates, "is not unreasonable. Partly elected, partly appointed. I will negotiate our dealings with the Chalnori myself."

"And Rigel and I are happy to serve as emissaries to the Asrakali Noraya, of course," says a woman with huge eyes and dark hair cropped close to her chin. The boyish, bookish youth to her right nods. They're clearly siblings, having been cut from the same cloth. Upturned noses, deep-set eyes that sparkle like dusky gems, absurdly high cheekbones. 

It's strange to sit in a room filled with such variance. Every member of my family had some shade of blonde hair; it only differed in tone, whether it was ashen like mine, or silvery like Shira's, or golden like Somitu's. Our eyes were gray, green, or blue, which made Shira's brown eyes stand out all the more. The woman across from me has Harrowin eyes; dark haired, dark eyed Dakara speaks with a Brekkan accent; Lord Shirarka has a head full of blue-black curls. And I'd bet money that Seramichen blood is responsible for the red tint in Lord Ysana's hair. And they act like this heterogeneity is the most natural thing in the world. I wish for a moment that Shira could see all of these dark eyes around the same table, set in both Shikkan and foreign faces. He was always so self-conscious about his eyes. I just thought they were beautiful.

I'm so lost in thought that I don't notice Hanya Vespirsi staring at me until the meeting has all but ended. I meet her gaze, letting her know I've seen her watching me, and I expect her to look away. She doesn't. I anticipate another challenge like Miromi Chayal's, but Hanya is silent. She just cocks her head inquisitively, purses her lips, then flashes me a smile. Her observation is blatant enough to be offensive, but I see no malice hiding in her features, merely curiosity.

So I watch her back, just as blatantly, which only makes her smile wider. She's wiry where her brother Rigel is merely slight, and her long arms are wrapped in sleeves of tattoos. The designs are intricate whorls of red and black and I know I've seen them somewhere before, but I can't for the life of me remember where. Her arms beneath the ink are well-muscled, marking her as a fighter or an athlete. She has a dimple and her nose has been broken at least once; it healed slightly crooked, giving her face character.

I lose focus amidst the talk of half-cocked plans for disastrous alliances and come to when the room falls silent, the meeting having adjourned. As the vasayaste filter out of the chamber, I hear a high pitched whine. "But mother!"

"Kazril, you are not going with me. Absolutely not. You are not going to interact with the pirazarin in any way, shape, or form. Is that understood?" I hear a woman to my right say sharply to her daughter, who seems like a tall girl rather than a woman.

"But mother," the awkwardly pubescent Kazril repeats, all huffs and eye rolls. "You said you wanted me to have more worldly experiences."

"You. Are. Not. Going. With. Me. To. Meet. The. Pirates," her beleaguered mother sighs, though there's a hint of amusement twinkling in her amber eyes. Her hair is the same red-blonde as Lord Ysana; this must be his mother and sister.

"It would be perfectly safe, you know. The dimaraste called us pirates and bloodthirsty curs, and we're perfectly civilized! It's a mere matter of prejudice! Aren't you always telling me to broaden my horizons?" She looks close to tears and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing aloud. "If you take me instead of Es I promise I won't say a word out of line. I'll just take notes, alright? I can write much faster than he can."

"It's not a bad idea," Esaroth says, reaching forward and ruffling his little sister's hair in a way she obviously hates. More eye rolls ensue. "They all say that scurvy rots the teeth, and Kaz hasn't gotten all of her adult molars in. They'll have a degree of toothlessness in common."

"Between the two of you, you're sure to drive me mad."

"O'otani," Sholu says, catching my eye. "I'm going to stay a while and discuss technicalities with Rigel. You're welcome to stay, but I know you hate sitting still for too long, so you're equally welcome to go."

"- I'll ask them if they have any need of a new figurehead for their ship. We'll tie you to the bow. You'll love it. Maybe you'll even see some mermaids, or dolphins." I finally laugh out loud at Esaroth and his ridiculous sister, drawing her eyes to me. She looks confused whether she should be offended or delighted by the attention.

"I need some air, and like I said, I always want to be rid of you, darling," I say in a voice sickeningly sweet enough to rot the rest of the pirazarin's teeth from their scurvied mouths. He nods once, then turns his attention back to the seated Rigel, and I leave the room.

I feel slightly shell-shocked. I don't know exactly what I expected, but it certainly wasn't that. They're so overly familiar, so varied, so loud. And far too human for my liking.

"Koi dizsa-"

"- I'm sorry, but I have to get some air," I say with what I hope is a convincing smile to a woman who looks at me so beseechingly I'm afraid she might try to grab my sleeve. "It was a long meeting. There are things I must tend to." It sounds like a lame excuse even to me, but I have to get away. There are too many bodies in the hall, too many voices as the council meeting becomes an exodus. I don't know how to describe it except to say that they're suddenly too real. Before, they were like distant constellations; bright, but very far away, and if you stared straight at their light, it flickered out. Now I feel like a stranger on the surface of a foreign, and definitively hostile, planet. I suppose I've thought of endings so much recently, of the end of my universe, that I failed to consider the beginnings of a new one. It hurts to watch that change unfold right in front of my eyes, talking in my ear, bumping into me, bowing, calling my name. I duck into an empty hallway when the crowd isn't looking and then I can breathe again, alone in a long, narrow corridor lined with paintings, mostly family portraits, that weren't considered masterful enough to be displayed in the main galleries.

A woman with stony eyes and a sour pucker looks down on me, as if in assessment. "Your nose is far too long for you to be this judgmental," I mutter at the canvas. Her eyes remain hard and cold, and I turn away, faced instead with a pretty little girl with wispy curls holding a rabbit. I've never understood the objects that artists choose to include in portraits. They're meant to give the painting context, to make the stiff relatives in out of fashion clothing look more alive, perhaps even familiar. But what do vases, half of them filled with flowers, half with fruit, or baskets, or sundry small animals add to a likeness? "You unfortunate creature," I whisper to the rabbit. "The painter really missed the mark with you, didn't they? You look like an exceptionally large rat."

I think I hear footsteps, but when I look over my shoulder, I see only the disapproving gaze of a haughty great-great-great uncle. The sound must have come from the larger corridor I left to avoid the crowd, or from the next hall over. I turn back to the sad little rat-rabbit, but there's a tingle at the base of my neck telling me that more than just the old portraits are watching. "Hello?" I ask the seemingly empty hall. "Hanya?" She was watching me earlier; maybe she followed me to continue her study. "Sholu?" I try, turning to look more closely at the length of hall to my left. "If you're fucking with me, I swear to the goddess, I'll cut pieces of you off in your sleep." Only stillness and silence answer my summons.

Then I turn to the right, just to reassure myself I'm alone, and he's there. I don't know who he is; I think I saw him at the council meeting, but he didn't speak. He's ducked out from behind a shadowed alcove, where he must have had his back pressed tightly against the irregular stone wall. And he's close. Barely more than an arm's length away from me.

"Definitely not Hanya," he growls.

"How did you-" I begin to ask, but before I know what's happening he slams me back against the cold stone wall, knocking the wind out of me. The words I would have spoken next die on my tongue and a pained, surprised sputter falls from my lips instead. Almost as soon as he pushed me, he clapped his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming. I try anyways, but a second later I feel a sharp edge kiss the delicate skin of my throat. The metal is cool and I shudder, my heart racing wildly, my mind reeling. How was he able to get so close to me without me noticing? I know I'm out of practice, but he's not a slight man, and I've spent my life learning how not to be snuck up on. My pride would be near mortally wounded if I wasn't so distracted by the fear pulsing through me.

I bite down hard, hoping to catch the hands cupped over my mouth, but I only succeed in bloodying my own tongue. Should I lunge at him and kick him somewhere soft, then try to run? Am I fast enough to move my throat away from his knife before it's slit and I'm bleeding out beneath the bored, vaguely disapproving stares of my ancestors? It seems doubtful.

He's young, maybe twenty eight, with ash brown hair that falls over his eyes in haphazard whorls. Those eyes are vivid green and burning with an intensity that makes me think of a forest swallowed by wildfire. A second later I notice that only one of his eyes is green; the second is a golden hazel that reminds me so much of Halima Royen. A smattering of freckles dusts his cheeks, which are slightly pink from being too long in the sun. He's not particularly tall or bulky, but the stone wall biting into my back proves he's strong.

"I just want you to listen," he whispers, his voice low and strangely soft. Smooth, too, like silk slipping through your fingers. He blinks one green eye and one gold eye and leans forward, putting more pressure on the hand covering my mouth.

"There's been enough talking," he continues. "A book's worth of it in that damned council meeting, each sentence grating at me a little more until I wanted to stand up and scream. Too many words, never enough substance." If his hand wasn't covering my mouth, I'd heartily agree.

"Our lord and savior is a fool," he mutters. "To think he can control you. You gave a pretty speech back there," he laughs, utterly mirthless. "About god and water and the price you paid. You practically had some of the weaker among us sniffling as your voice quavered, so full of feeling and mythic sorrow. Such beautiful, heart-wrenching words, but they're just words, are they not?"

His golden eye almost seems to glow as he continues to talk, picking up speed as the words tumble out of him like they've been compressed. The anger on his face seems personal, though I know we've never met before today. "The truth is that you sold your own family for a chance to sit on the throne, and somewhere along the way, you convinced Verlaina the Great to make you his dimarastisi pet. Then, somehow, his queen."

If I wasn't so frightened, I'd laugh at the epithet he assigned Sholu, and the biting irony in his tone. So there are vasayaste who don't hold with Sholu, at least not closely. Interesting.

"First he kept you out of the room when the shooting began. Then, he pardoned you when we all voted to have you hang. His mercy, his favor, how did you court it?" He asks me, looking me over intently. "You're not a beauty; perhaps it was a honeyed tongue, or a singular lack of shame. What did you do for him, princess, to buy your place at his side?"

His hand has loosened slightly over the course of his speech, and instead of screaming, I laugh. I laugh until my chest aches and tears are streaming down my face. The irony of having someone, anyone, think that I pursued Sholu Verlaina- that I was the one forcing that connection, through manipulation or flattery or sex- undoes me utterly.

He looks confused. His grip loosens a bit more and I draw in a ragged breath, my throat burning like I've swallowed cracked glass.

"If you scream, I will cut your throat," he tells me. "But why laughter? Is your own death funny to you, Princess?"

"You may very well cut my throat whether I scream or not, but to answer your question, yes. This is all ridiculously funny to me, dripping with an irony as thick as the honey you say coats my tongue. To think that I orchestrated this travesty- well, I suppose I played my part well."

"And what part is that?"

"Who wants to know?"

He inhales, then exhales with a sigh, withdrawing the knife a few inches more. "Roze. My name is Roze. Now answer my question, and maybe I won't kill you."

"Maybe," I rasp, "I want you to."

An even greater confusion shines in those mismatched eyes. "What's your angle?"

"Three hundred and sixty degrees," I tell him. "A full circle, ending exactly where I began, whatever appearances might suggest. I did not chase Sholu, and I did not sell my family to mercenaries to sit by his side on a fancy chair. I just sold myself."

"Explain."

"Why do you think I'll take orders from you, Roze whoever-you-are?"

"I have a knife."

"And you're not going to use it," I bluff, not at all certain I'm right. "You're doing this because you're trying to protect Sholu, aren't you? I did the same thing once. I went behind the back of the dizsa and my bloodbound, convinced that it was the only way I could keep him safe. And my entire world ended in a night. As will yours, if you kill me," I say, forging my voice with as much steel as I can manage. "He thinks he's in love with me. He has gone to absurd lengths to obtain and master me. If you end my life, he will repay you in kind. He'll kill your family, too."

"I'm not doing this to protect Verlaina, and I have no family."

"Well, I do," I snap. "And I have to play this game to keep him alive, and I don't know what will happen to him if you slit my throat, so just don't. Please, don't."

"You... have family?" He asks, and I realize in a moment what I've said. What I've done. "But the Izsai and dizsa are dead. They were ambushed while trying to board a ship to Mirrenova. Someone came and collected the bounty on their heads last month; they only got half, lacking a body, but they had possessions to prove the job was done. Rings, a sealed letter. A lock of hair."

"I have no one," I say so quickly my words stumble over one another, hoping, no, praying that he hears the truth in my voice. When Sholu forced me to marry him by threatening Shira, he told me it would be safer for them to be dead. No one would look for them, no one would believe it if they reappeared. "I have the shadow of a hope, a mere illusion. Nothing more. I tell myself stories to make it hurt less, an sometimes I pretend they're still out there, somewhere, waiting for me. It's stupid, but-"

He leans closer to me and asks "did anyone ever tell you that you're a horrible liar?"

"I had you convinced that I was an opportunist manipulating your lord and threatening the stability of your new regime," I snap. "You were certain enough to put a knife to my throat. Like I said, I play my part well."

"Well, I know for a fact that you believe the Amarin heir is alive. I don't know if that's a fiction Sholu's spun for you or the truth, but I'm inclined to the latter, given his opacity on the subject. One moment he's following leads, tracking the Izsai across the Karithian Channel, the next moment he's telling us the boy is dead. No body, of course, but several witnesses who swore to having seen it. He found him, didn't he? He found him and he never told us because- why? What could he possibly gain that would be worth letting Shira go?

"Me," I say simply. "Shira's life was my wedding present."

"Why you?"

"I've been asking myself that question every day for months," I reply honestly. "For a time I thought he wanted absolution; if he could convince me to see things his way, he could forgive himself. But he doesn't need to be forgiven. Then I thought he was just a sadist, and he wanted to break me like a stick over his knee. Perhaps, I mused, he's just bored and I'm the closest toy," I chuckle, but the sound is so hollow it echoes. "Because I'm damned, Roze," I confess in a low whisper, looking away again. His gaze is too penetrating to be endured. "The love of a man like that is a death sentence one way or another. Sometimes, though, I imagine it's his instead of mine."

A look of understanding unclouds his dark brows. "You never betrayed them, did you?" He asks, barely louder than a whisper. Sympathy gradually replaces the antipathy shining from his alien eyes.

"Yes, I did," I insist, looking away from a pair of eyes that already know too much, suddenly feeling very naked. "I knew my mother was making deals with Sholu behind Somitu's back and I didn't say a word. I thought I was protecting my family and I earned them a bullet to the head.

"All this time," he breathes "you've been protecting him."

"I have to," I insist, hoping Roze doesn't hear the slight quaver in my voice. "I've been protecting him for my entire life. He's not dead, and he's not going to die. He just- he can't."

"But what about you?" Roze asks.

"What about me?"

"You can die," he says, motioning halfheartedly to the knife at his side. "If you told anyone but me the truth, they'd kill you where you were standing. This is no place for loyalists."

"I am not here because I want to be, believe me," I spit. "And I'd like to see them try. I'll cut them open like ripe fruit."

"Like you did me?"

I look away again, frowning. "You were quiet. I wasn't paying attention."

"I was going to kill you, O'otani," he says, somewhat harshly. "I would have killed you if you hadn't opened your damned mouth and laughed instead of screamed."

"So why don't you?" I ask. "Like you said, this is no place for loyalists."

"I'm not going to kill you," he sighs. "If anything, I'll buy you a fucking drink. I wasn't willing to trust a woman who would murder her own family with the future of my country, but I'm inclined to trust a woman who went this far to save a life. You're not morally bankrupt. You're not a variable that cannot be accounted for. You're just horrifically unlucky." He pauses for a beat, then says, so softly it hurts, "O'otani, I'm so sorry."

"If you killed me, you would be protecting him," I tell him, pushing all emotion from my voice. "My ghost won't able to rest until I drive a knife between Sholu Verlaina's ribs. That's what I do for him that makes him want me," I deadpan. "I try to kill him with various household objects because he took all of my knives away. You'll have to ask him why he gets off on his own murder and mutilation."

"Because he's always been fucking crazy," Roze says, rolling his eyes. And in that moment, I could kiss him.

"I've been waiting a long time to hear someone else say that aloud. Thank you, Roze whoever-you-are. It's good to know at least one of the vasayastisi has a brain and isn't just part of Sholu's hive mind."

"You laugh when I threaten your life, and thank me, too. Maybe you're as crazy as he is."

"Oh, so much more," I reply darkly. "One day, I intend to take him apart like a broken machine, and when I'm done there won't be any way to put the pieces back together again."

"Definitively insane," he says, eyebrows raised. "Utterly depraved." Then, he smiles for the first time, and says "Princess, I think I like you."

"Even though I just confessed that I fantasize about murdering your king?"

"I have no king," Roze says. "I'm for myself, O'otani, and I'm for Shikkah. And, to be honest, I don't trust Sholu Verlaina. I knew him back before he buttoned up a silk shirt and plaited his hair and called himself a lord. He did things when he leveled Kanza Arishai's noraya that still haunt my thoughts on occasion." He pauses, then adds, in a lower voice "and some of us consider it extreme to make a unilateral decision to shoot a hundred and ten unarmed civilians on a feast day."

"You opposed him?"

"He never told most of us. He did what he wanted, with the noraya and his closest vasayaste cohorts backing him, and then he told us how things were to be when the dust settled."

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask, genuinely perplexed. "He just called for complete unwavering loyalty, and you're admitting your qualms to his wife?"

"I came here to kill you. I put a knife to your throat. There's not much I can say to make that worse for myself, should you choose to tell. But I don't think you will."

"Why not? You just admitted you tried to kill me, why shouldn't I tell him and have him cut you open from nape to navel?"

"First of all, Lord Ryma tried to kill you," he tells me. "Sholu told him to keep you out of the room when the shooting began, but he made damn well sure you were right in the thick of it. If you're going to run to your husband and demand retribution, start at the beginning. I wouldn't mind seeing that cock sucker's head on a platter." He smiles rather boyishly. "But that's mere deflection, isn't it? Truth be told, I'm taking a risk here. Hoping that you'll keep my secrets so I'll keep yours. And I think you're smart enough to know that right here, right now, you really need some friends."

"I don't need friends," I huff.

"Yes, you do, Princess," he assures me. "Half of us distrust you because you're dimarastisi, the other half because you sold your own family for a crown. Allegedly," he amends. "And I think you'll find I'm a good friend to have."

"O'otani?" I hear Sholu's voice float around the corner.

"I need to go."

"Go, then," he says, making a shooing gesture. "And don't share the knife bit with him. I'd like to keep my balls attached to my body."

My laugh sounds like a yelp. "I wouldn't dream of it. But tell me one thing first."

"O'otani, Hanya said you walked this way-"

"What's your full name?" I ask quickly. "If you know my secrets, I should at least know your name."

"Lord Ambroz Marithan," he says, already walking away from me.       

__________

*drama intensifies*

I am aware that this chapter title is an awful pun, but I couldn't help myself. What do you think of Roze?