His left hand clenched and unclenched. He needed to relax. Maunyn hadn’t given him a new order. There was no point overthinking things. He muttered the reminder over and over, though quietly, blending the words with his breath as his mentor had taught him.

He turned at the sound of hooves. Up the road, two riders approached on proper steeds, long necked and graceful. He knew his master’s form even at this distance. Nervous and anxious and eager all at once, his gut hardened to a knot.

Barely Mornae by most accounts, he’d grown up in the poverty of a south valley border town and run wild. A practiced pickpocket at fifteen, the village militia had captured and shackled him to an old silverpine, a meal for the wolves. Mornae didn’t know mercy. Not for wretches like himself. They spared him only because one of Maunyn’s men, Ren’s mentor, had paid the village three silver and claimed him.

Maunyn had provided for his education—a real one, a practical one. His teacher had been a former diviner taken to hard living, no doubt another outcast whose house had failed to thrive. This teacher taught him to reach the Dark. How he’d known Ren could, he never asked. What mattered was that he could do it. Then he learned the use of small blades and moving quietly, and other tricks. Potions and powders came later. He made his own concoctions these days and prided himself on his knowledge of plants. Since then, Ren had known his purpose and place. He wanted for nothing, but what he earned piled up in the vaults, a mountain of chits stored up for a future day when he might be a consort in his own right.

His master alighted from the dark gray stallion, a rare mount and one used only for carrying him farther into the valley. His companion, a squire by the look of him, long silver hair bound back, richly dressed, took the reins. Maunyn barely acknowledged the thug spearmen and handed his kithaun spear to his squire.

Ren bowed his head as Maunyn passed. He would have bowed even if the man had not been a great lord. Maunyn was seven feet tall, muscular and lean, and his long hair was the color of glossy gray-blue slate. It flowed down his back, goddess-light flickering at the tips; his silver eyes looked on all with haughty disdain. He bore two black blades—real kithaun, not stained black like Ren’s—and others throughout his person. In the crater he might dress the lord, but out here he dressed like a killer.

Ren knew the look. As a boy he’d thought the Mornae’s height a disadvantage until he’d faced a Dark. He didn’t face the assassin himself, but he’d been there, hiding in the shadows, a scrawny twelve-year-old. The Dark had been like Maunyn in every way and moved with extraordinary speed and grace. It was like he was not even there, merely a shadow or a wind. The Dark’s longer reach and deadly weapons took out all of Ren’s companions. They’d trespassed where they shouldn’t have. Ren should’ve said something, but he was just a boy trying to prove himself to the older ruffians. Their bodies were strewn about in pieces. As a knife cuts through tender meat, the Dark had cut through them. After that, Ren worked alone; until they caught him not long after, and he became his lord’s henchman.

They followed Maunyn the rest of the way toward the estate. He walked alone ahead of them, the squire and Ren close behind. The spearmen walked further back, unworthy to be in so great a lord’s immediate presence.

The Sons of Hosmyr were busy at the tournaments, dressed in finery, drinking brandy and wine, flirting with unconsorted priestesses. Maunyn, however, was the prime consort of the third high house, headmaster of Isilmyr, all about the business of his house. And his consort, the grand old matron of Ilor’Hosmyr, was the third most important person in all Vaidolin.

Ren shook his head to think of those two together, but if anyone was bound to his consort, it was Maunyn. No one was as dedicated. The relentless drive of the binding directed his master as surely as his hands guided those deadly daggers.

A servant opened the heavy double doors and showed them into a small courtyard. The people of the estate, workers, fieldhands, servants, and guards, a host of folk, stood around as the high lord passed unperturbed by these lesser beings. At the foot of the steps to the main house, the matron of Lor’Sarstin, her consort, her daughter, and her two sons waited. The gap between them and Maunyn was clear, but they were a step or two higher than most valley lordlings. They had a proud stance; their house was old for the valley, and they did what they could to improve themselves. That much was clear, but the children were a mix of stellar and awful. The girl had the face of a sheep, long and chinless, though her eyes were nice enough.

Ren knew enough by now to see why they’d come to this place. The eldest boy must be Maunyn’s. He’d bet all his chits on it. Everyone knew his master’s reputation. There was a rumor he’d sired a hundred children in the valley. Must be the eldest, because the youngest, a boy just off his ass, was a flat-faced, beady-eyed little thing. The boy stood still. Attentive, but lacking all grace. He squeezed his little mouth tight, as if already angry at the world.

Maunyn paused in front of them, chin up, eyes closed to slits.

“Matron Lor’Sarstin,” he said. “I am grateful for your invitation. Goddess favor you and your house.”

It was the formal way, and Maunyn said it so gracefully, regally, that the matron softened and melted from one moment to the next, gushing so much that she forgot to introduce her household. The simple fact was that Maunyn was entering a house ruled by this woman. It was like entering a foreign city. Unlike other so-called houses, Lor-whatever-they-wanted, this was a true Mornae house, and had been a Hosmyr vassal through at least four or five matrons. Their knights and priestesses counted. His teacher had made sure Ren knew all the formalities, at least in passing, and that he made a study of the houses and their customs. Like any true Mornae house, its matron ruled supreme within its walls. She must be tactful, of course. A house was only as strong as the strength it had to beat off rivals. Ren looked at the poorly clad guards. They were just field hands called upon to dress up as soldiers. This matron didn’t strike Ren as particularly strong.

Inside, the matron grasped Maunyn’s arm, cooing and shrill; her praises for the high lord filled the cramped foyer. Ren passed by the boys and with deft practice, offered them a sweet, tousled their silver-white hair, plucking a strand from each and storing them in another pocket. The girl was already an acolyte, so he passed. No one said a thing to him, touching the boys. He was Maunyn’s servant.

“Nalik?” Maunyn called from within the foyer, using Ren’s fake name. His master’s voice echoed and beat a path toward him.

“Yes, milord,” Ren replied, running in toward him.

“Note the fine appointments of this favored house,” Maunyn said, oozing whatever made these matrons swoon.

Ren waited, expecting Maunyn to dismiss him and spend time with her in private. Matrons might have the power of binding, but Maunyn had a power as well. After the encounter, when he’d pleasured her, he would explain the true reason for his visit, whatever that might be. More taxes, a forgotten debt or a manufactured one, more levies to man the defenses of Halkamas. Whatever the target couldn’t afford. The matron would be so obsequious that she would struggle to resist. And then he would suggest putting one of her boys in the care of Ilor’Hosmyr, to be raised as a beloved son. These houses couldn’t afford to send their sons to the academies in Vaidolin. Their only hope was the support of a more important house. It sounded like that was what they were getting, but in truth they would never see their sons again, having disappeared them into the layers of a society valley Mornae would never interact with. They could never consort them off to another house.

Ren hoped to learn something of Maunyn’s smoothness with women. He had little luck with tavern servers, even the ones he could pay for. He watched as, room by room, Maunyn’s hand found its way to the matron’s shoulder, trailing a finger to her bare neck—all these matrons wore their hair bundled up it seemed—and then down her back. Those terrible hands which had done so many brutal things could goad a woman like this one to bed him at the slightest suggestion.

They reached a chamber and Maunyn gave Ren the look. Ren nodded and turned to leave. A servant guided him back to the main hall. He struck up a conversation, and she seemed amenable. He imitated Maunyn’s gait, the tilt of his head, letting his silver eyes widen at just the right time, and pursing his lips pensively. Little tricks he’d picked up over the years. Ren had charms of his own.

By the end of the tour, Ren knew every opening to the house and where the children slept. It was a straightforward task should the matron refuse.

He paced in the courtyard, waiting for his lord, tugging at the stiff felt vest, longing to be out of it and free to move as he pleased. He ignored the hired thugs. Finesse was better than crude brutality, but he had to admit it had its place. He’d once seen a visit go sour, and the bullies terrorized the manse by turning over carts and pushing the servants around. In the end, the matron had yielded and paid her due. Maunyn always seemed to know the force needed to persuade.

The doors opened and Maunyn descended the steps, pulling his riding gloves on.

Ren drew close and whispered, “I have the samples, milord. Good ones.”

Maunyn only furrowed his brow. “What for?”

“The boys, milord?”

Maunyn walked off. “Fool,” he said over his shoulder. “All are mine. Hurry! I have more important work for you.”

Ren turned back, confused. Why had Maunyn brought him? The youngest, the flat-faced boy, looked down at him from a window with his beady little eyes.

“Not all trees give a good seed,” Ren muttered. He was a good seed, though. Just needed attention.

The eldest Sarstin boy was a clearer resemblance to his master, but the youngest? Ren grimaced. And the girl? Not in a cycle would he have thought she could be Maunyn’s. The girl took after her mother.

Matron Sarstin was glaring at him. Maunyn had ridden off, already halfway down the road, the hired spearmen clattering after him.

Ren gave a last glance around the place, taking in the details in case his lord sent him back under less pleasant circumstances. He walked with purpose out of that estate. His master had more important work for him.

6

Light filtered in through the tall, narrow slits in the outer wall, illuminating the room and the desk at which Taul’s love, his consort and matron, Ryldia Lor’Toshtolin, looked over the latest figures from the valley. In Bedor’s light, Ryldia’s face appeared like the ancient mosaics on the walls of a sanctuary. She ran a finger down an open ledger, tapping the figure at the bottom of the page. She turned the page, and then another, then pushed that ledger aside and returned to the contract in question.

“It’s less than I’d hoped for,” she said.

The gentle curve of her neck beckoned Taul. She had fine, high cheeks, sharp and angled down to a round chin. Silver speckled her large, pale blue eyes, like a robin’s egg. Serene like a clear night, her gaze traveled the length of the contract. A black steel ring, the Toshtolin matron’s ring, adorned her right hand. Her left hand grasped the swell of her belly, the last hope of her matroncy.

Savin, the house diviner, drew close, and she whispered something to him. Another error, no doubt, but Ryldia was discreet in her corrections, as a good matron should be. As matron, she held the power of life and death in her house, but she wielded that power lightly.

Taul leaned over the table toward the ledger, and the fragrance of her drew his attention. Sweeter than any blossom, any orchard. He loved working with her like this. She sparkled like a star in the firmament of his mind. He reminded himself that it was just the binding. And yet, he wanted it no other way. Taul savored what Balniss had given up in becoming a diviner. He gazed at her belly. The child, an heiress, would seal the future for their house.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, frowning at the error. “Let it not happen again, Savin.”

Savin, his tattooed scalp visible through a thin layer of stubble, nodded. Taul would need to remind him to keep his appearance. He looked like a failed diviner. Lor’Toshtolin was a respected crater house and kept the standard.

With a kithaun stylus, Savin corrected the errors, transfiguring the writing into the correct amounts by the thought of his mind and the power of the enchanted device. He turned the contract back to her, and she gave it a last look.

Taul still frowned at Savin, who stepped back from their matron’s presence, head bowed. It wasn’t his fault the figures were off. Taul chewed his lower lip as they both waited for Ryldia’s verdict.

“Otherwise, a fine contract,” she said cheerfully. She set the matron’s ring against the parchment and closed her eyes. A faint blue light shone from it and smoke wisped from where the blue fire singed the document. Her skin paled considerably as she exerted power over the signet. Contract signed, she pushed away from the table. Savin let out a satisfied sigh and rolled up the contract. She puffed her cheeks out and exhaled. Her skin flushed darker gray, a thin sheen of sweat on her upper lip.

Taul leaned out of the matron’s office and called Ryldia’s handmaid for water and linen. He started around the table to help her.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she said. “Just need to rest. I’ll see the confinement chambers later.”

“They will please you,” Taul said, beaming.

“I’m certain of it,” she said tenderly.

His love for her swelled beyond reason.