Mouse waited with the other ladies, just behind the place where Johannes and the Empress stood in front of the stables. A small crowd had formed to see the newest acquisition, apparently. the nobleman’s doing. It was with a smile of smug satisfaction on his obnoxiously handsome face that Johannes stood beside the Empress waiting, as the horse, equally handsome, though not quite so obnoxious, was brought ‘round.

  “He’s called Stormbringer,” the nobleman announced, taking the lead from the groom and turning to the Empress, “and he’s yours.”

  The Empress’s eyes lit up, a look of wonderment on her face as she slowly approached the beast and extended an arm to run a hand along his dark, supple neck. At over sixteen hands, Stormbringer was more warhorse than courser, but if the Empress minded this fact, she certainly did not show it. She, like everyone else, was enraptured by the creatures almost otherworldly beauty. The stallion had a dark, wavy mane, and his coat was a glossy black, but the sun showed hints of copper in his coloring that made him look almost as though he had been forged with hammer and fire.

  Even Mouse thought the horse beautiful, and a voice inside her whispered that perhaps this was the gift that Johannes had spoken of all those weeks ago.

  “Johannes,” the Empress breathed, as the stallion picked up his head and flicked his ears in response to her touch, “he’s magnificent.”

  “He ought to be,” said Johannes, still holding the lead as the Empress, her hand traced her hand along the horse’s shoulder. “His sire was Travesty.”

  The Empress quickly turned to face the nobleman.

  “Widukind’s horse?” she asked.

  The nobleman smiled at the hint of disbelief in her voice.

  “The one he rode across the Gheny,” he said. “Through the Adderkops and past the marshes to defeat the barbarous Braques.”

  The Empress returned her gaze to horse, the delight writ across her face.

  “Do you like him?” the nobleman asked.

  “I adore him,” said the Empress.

  “Good,” smiled Johannes. “I had the saddlemaker use the same kind of leather that Widukind used, but he put in gold thread rather than silver. I hope that’s alright with you.”

  The Empress’s eyes flitted over the horse as the nobleman handed the lead back to the groom and slid an arm around her. “You can’t stay angry with me forever, Ida,” he said in a low voice, pulling the Empress in close.

  “I most certainly can,” the Empress said, half-heartedly attempting to squirm her way out of the nobleman’s grasp. “And I told you not to call me that.”

  But Johannes would not let her go.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, squeezing her about the waist and burying his face into her hair. “Whatever you say, Your Majesty.”

  The Empress let out a laugh of delight as the nobleman planted his lips all over her. Mouse looked on, annoyed, in a way, that Johannes had managed to worm his way back into the Empress’s good graces and disgusted, in another, at the woman’s inability to see through his guise of obsequiousness. Could she really be so blind to his scheming, or did she not care, so long as he showered her in affection and false praise? It was in that moment, as the nobleman pressed his lips into the Empress’s hair, that his eyes found Mouse’s. They glinted green in the sunlight, a challenge, a threat, and Mouse soon found herself forced to look away.

  “I suppose I should thank you,” the Empress said now, drawing Johannes’ gaze back to herself.

  “You know,” said the nobleman, wrapping his arm tightly around her and leading her away, “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Mouse watched with a scowl as the pair disappeared. They deserved each other, she thought. Each was the manifestation of every selfish desire indulged, grotesque in the impotence of their good sense. Love, if you could call it that, was no better than the lover. So let them suffer one another and leave the good men for the more deserving.

  Mouse returned now with the others back to the steps of the keep. An early dinner had been arranged with the Val and a few other guests who had traveled from the north, and even though it seemed as though they had just broken fast, Mouse knew she must arrive early, in time to make excuses for the Empress’s being late.

  That morning had been a rehearsal of the Empress’s usual cruelties. Mouse had been mocked, rather needlessly she thought, for how ghoulish she looked, the result of a night spent sleeping on the floor, and Agatha too had been subjected to similar ridicule. The poor girl had indeed not looked well, thought Mouse. Her face was puffy and she had a somewhat uncharacteristic pallor to her complexion, though it seemed doubly cruel for the Empress to draw attention to it, given that she was, in many ways, the cause of the girl’s distress.

  Mouse had attempted, once again, to appeal to the Empress on Agatha’s behalf, but no sooner had the name Sir Frederick escaped her lips than the Empress snapped at her for being naive and foolish and having no understanding whatever, despite having been raised in the court, of how these things worked. Mouse had tried to make her arguments in favor of the union heard, but the Empress was quick to dismiss her. And to add insult, she further claimed that she would sooner marry Sir Frederick to a hedgehog than Agatha, for though both were useless, fatuous creatures, at least a hedgehog was could not be said to be dull.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Mouse felt all the weight of her ineffectiveness once again. She was foolish for thinking that things might ever change, for thinking that she could have even the smallest influence on those events that transpired around her. Even with what she had considered to be bold actions undertaken at Pothes Mar, she had gained not the least consideration, been in no way lauded for what she had managed to achieve. No matter how she tried or what she dared, it seemed she would never amount to anything more than a tiny, insignificant little mouse. Maybe she deserved a worry stone in her bed after all.

  Mouse sat in the dining room, chasing a boiled egg around her plate with a knife. The Empress had, predictably, been late, no doubt delayed by her reconciliation with the chestnut-haired nobleman, but it had not taken long after her arrival for the conversation to take an abrupt turn. What transpired now between the Empress and Val Hector was something more akin to a sparring match than a polite dinner conversation, and Mouse, like the rest, now busied herself by pretending to be occupied with her food. But there could be no mistake that every ear was trained on what was being said between the Empress and the Val.

  “Regardless, Your Majesty,” the Val was saying now, “our purpose in the capital remains the same.”

  “And that is?” asked the Empress.

  “To negotiate the terms of Arosian military withdrawal from the Chatti lands.” The Val’s sea glass eyes were fixed determinedly on the Empress with every word she spoke.

  The Empress laughed, knocking a salt cellar to the floor as she reached for her wine.

  “My dear Val Hector,” she said, “I continue to be astounded by your arrogance, truly. But do let us be clear of one thing,” she brought her cup to her lips. “You are here because I sent for you.” She took a deep drink before replacing her cup on the table. “Now, tell me, when did it become the decision of the Chatti people where the Empire should and should not place its army?”

  “I did not—”

  “Those men are providing an invaluable service to your people,” the Empress said, lancing a sausage with her knife, “and the fact that you would come here, to the seat of Arosian power and indicate anything to the contrary...” she trailed off, biting into the sausage.

  Mouse glanced up at the Val, who cleverly allowed a moment of silence to pass before attempting to speak again.

  “Your Majesty,” she said at last, “I have no wish to hint in any way that we are ungrateful for what the Empire has done for us, but while I am here, I do mean to initiate a dialogue which—”

  “You are feal to the crown of Aros, are you not?” the Empress interrupted, dropping her knife on the table and wiping her hands on a cloth.

  “Certainly, Your Majesty,” Val Hector replied, clearly taken aback by the question.

  “Good,” said the Empress, “because it is beginning to sound as though you have conjured an agenda to the contrary.”

  The Val looked at the Empress. Outwardly, she was the picture of composure, but Mouse could see from the way she balled her hands in her lap that she was beginning to lose her patience.

  “Our only wish, Your Majesty, is to lessen Chatti reliance on Arosian resources in a bid to become more—”

  “More what?” snapped the Empress. “More independent?” She took another sip of wine, “That is what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

  The pressed her lips together.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said.

  The Empress’s lips turned up into a sneer.

  “You do not mean to lessen your reliance on Arosian resources,” she said, fixing the Val with a cold, pointed gaze. “That would be futile indeed. What you do mean to do is to lessen the resources you provide Aros, to renege on those arrangements which serve as an exchange for all that we have done for you, for all that we continue to do for you.”

  Mouse could see the Val’s nostrils flare in frustration.

  “That is not what I said,” she protested.

  “But that is what you meant.”

  Val Hector sighed, but even now she did not waver, meeting the Empress with equal determination.

  “If we are ever to succeed as an independent nation, Your Majesty,” she said, “we must be allowed to test ourselves, and to that end—”

  “An independent nation?” scoffed the Empress. “Do not make me laugh.” The Val did not have a chance to reply to this before the Empress continued. “Now tell me again why you were you sent here, Val Hector,” she said. “Why you? For as far as I am concerned, one does not send a young woman of marriageable age to a foreign court without certain intent. Do you deny that part of your being here is to forge, through marriage, an alliance outside the purview of the Empire?”

  The girl blinked in surprise at the unexpected accusation.

  “I certainly do deny it, Your Majesty,” she said.

  “Then do you deny having a meeting, a private meeting, with the secretary to the Prince of Umbrec just last evening?”

  The Val pursed her lips but made no reply to this, and all at once, it seemed as though the air in the room had shifted against her. Even Mouse was surprised to hear such a report. Of course, there was nothing wrong with the Val acquainting herself with visitors of the court, but the fact that she had had an audience with a prince’s secretary and that she had done so in private did not cast her in a favorable light. These sort of things demanded careful arranging.

  “I’ll ask you again, Val Hector,” said the Empress. “Why are you here? What is it you really hope to achieve?”

  “As Your Majesty has already said,” Val Hector said with a sudden air of detachment, “I am here at your behest. As to why I in particular was chosen, that is a complicated matter, but one I’m certain my council would be glad to explain.”

  A smirk appeared on the Empress’s lips.

  “Val Hector,” she said measuredly, her dark eyes boring into the little Chatti girl, “I know you are little acquainted with the ways of the court, and it may be tempting to plead ignorance. So instead, allow me to explain matters clearly to you. From now on, you will serve as a member of my camarilla. That is your duty to this court and to the Empire. You are to remain here until an appropriate marriage of my design can be arranged.” She fixed the Val with a steely gaze. “Furthermore, I accept that your previous statements are likely evidence of your age and a product of your naivete, so I will choose to forgive them. Now, you may think that your people wish for independence, but weakening your ties to the Empire will do nothing but cripple your economy, set back your industry, and leave you vulnerable to attack.”

  The Val’s face had become startled throughout the course of the Empress’s speech, but she nonetheless kept her eyes resolutely fixed on the woman.

  “I am afraid that there has been a misunderstanding, Your Majesty,” she said.

  “Indeed, there has,” the Empress replied. “You see, the Empire is not your enemy, not for now at least. But that can easily change.” She rose from the table to leave. “Pray, keep that in mind.”

  The Val’s eyes trailed the Empress as she left the room before finding Mouse. Mouse looked back at Val Hector, her emotions a mix of admiration and uncertainty. There were few who could meet the Empress’s turbulence with such determination, such ferocity, and for that, the girl certainly deserved to be commended. However, Mouse wondered now, in light of the Empress’s hinting, whether Val Hector did not have some secret agenda of her own, something she was deliberately hiding even from Mouse.

  Mouse had had enough of secrets, enough of being used for others’ ends. She forced a smile to her lips, a show of support and solidarity for the girl whose sea glass eyes she gazed into. She was happy to be the girl’s friend, but under no circumstances would she allow herself to become a pawn.