Rhiannon shuddered slightly as she walked the familiar steps leading her back towards the private quarters of the castle. Having spent most of yet another day with Baudwin in the war room, she needed a nap. They had been under siege for five days now, but had received word that the reinforcement was only two days away. Every attempt the western lords had made at breaching the outer wall had met with failure, but they appeared content to wait them out, hoping they would run out of food and water.

With the arrival of Baudwin's vassals imminent, that didn't seem likely. Her stepfather must know that the king would call in reinforcements, so why did he not seem more concerned? They had rebuffed any attempt from Baudwin's side to open negotiations. What were they waiting for?

Opening the door to the shared sitting room, she stopped short when she found Ailla standing by a window, looking out over the city. A sense of foreboding niggled at the back of her head. The lady's maid turned around when she heard her enter, and the burning look in the woman's eyes made Rhiannon stop in her tracks.

"I've had word," Ailla said, her voice an octave higher than normal and her movements frenzied. "It's time."

"For what?" Rhiannon hoped against hope that the answer wouldn't be what she suspected as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Ailla huffed. "You ask such stupid questions sometimes. It's time for you to pay your dues to the Son of Deva."

A trickle of fear made its way down her spine. No! Not yet! It was too soon. She wasn't ready. She would never be ready.

"Already?" she asked, trying to keep her voice unaffected. "Recently you said it would be best if I gave birth to an heir before we... divested ourselves of the king."

"True. It was a hope of ours," the young woman admitted as she flitted across the room in anxious energy. "But the western lords were not content to wait as long as Son of Deva wanted. It seems the king angered them enough to expedite the plans. It's not how we would have preferred it, but it's too late now."

When the realisation of what the lady's maid had said hit her, it was as if the air had left her lungs and Rhiannon took an involuntary step backwards. "The western lords..." She shook her head, not wanting it to be true. "Lord Delen is working with Son of Deva?"

"Naturally. His reach is much greater than you can imagine." Ailla flashed a chilling smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You will pave the road to the throne for the lord. With their king dead and no heir, the city will falter, and ultimately fall."

"No."

The simple word made the lady's maid frown. "What do you mean?"

Steeling herself, Rhiannon took a deep, fortifying breath. "I mean no. I am not doing it."

The other woman's frenzied movements stilled as she stopped to stare. "You don't have a choice!"

"I do. And that choice is no."

The idea of her stepfather as the new king of Breoch was almost more distasteful than Baudwin losing his life. Fortunately, the first would never happen if she refused the latter.

"Have you forgotten our threat?" Ailla's voice was ominously quiet,  and she stared at her in a way that made her skin crawl.

"Not at all. Spill my secrets. Tell everyone everything. I would rather die than kill Baudwin. Or return the Godstone."

"You fool!" Ailla spat. "We will not allow you to escape with that stone again. If it's over your dead body, so be it."

Rhiannon laughed, but it was a hollow sound without joy. "If you kill me, you will never find it. Its location dies with me. And if that's the way it must be, then yes... So be it."

"Why would you sacrifice your life?" The concept seemed foreign to the lady's maid.

"Because my life isn't worth the lives of everyone who would suffer if Devin gets the stone." It was the truth, but if she was completely honest, saving Baudwin weighed heavier than all the others.

She gasped as Ailla slapped her.

"Don't you dare speak his name! Only those in his inner circle are allowed to know what it is!" The young woman's eyes looked feverish, as if she was burning up with a fever. "You're filth and not worthy of uttering his name."

Cheek stinging, Rhiannon raised her chin and took a step backwards. "I know him well enough to call him anything I want," she said coldly. "I suspect much better than you ever will."

Ailla let out a bone-chilling shriek as she launched herself forward, forcing Rhiannon to dodge out of the way. A shining, silver dagger in the other woman's hand sliced through the sleeve of her dress and a dark red stain was forming on the light green fabric.

"If you won't give us the Godstone anyway," Ailla panted, her face a vicious mask of barely suppressed fury. "Then I might as well kill you here and now. We have no use for you."

Baudwin surveyed the map in the war room for what felt like the hundredth time. At this point, he wasn't even sure why he kept doing it, as nothing much changed. The siege was at a stalemate until reinforcements arrived. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to leave. He felt he owed it to his people to keep track every step of the way, even if it was only minor attempts at breaching the walls or a new siege weapon being built.

The western lords had built a few trebuchets, and had caused some damage to the outer walls, but not enough to turn the battle. It had set them back when some of Baudwin's men had sneaked into their camp one night and set the first two on fire, forcing them to put it out and build new ones.

"Your Majesty!"

He looked up as a guard hurried into the room, his eyes wide as if shocked. "Someone has arrived to see you."

Baudwin frowned. "What do you mean? Our gates are closed. We are under siege."

"They... they just rode through the army," the young guard stammered. "No one attacked them."

"Who is it?"

The young guard's eyes looked as if they might pop out of their sockets. "Your Majesty, it's Sorceress Isobel and Sorcerer Wray."

Baudwin wasn't sure his face didn't mirror that of the guard's. Sorcerers? What were they doing in Ossol? The sorcerers usually kept out of the everyday quarrels between or within kingdoms. It was the High King who might interfere in such affairs. The sorcerers' duties were to keep guard and make sure the Dark God Ondastos never escaped his imprisonment in the Nether Realm and keep the world of Erya safe. They did not get involved in pesky disagreements about who should or should not be king, so he highly doubted they were there to aid him in this battle.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"In the throne room, Your Majesty."

Nodding, Baudwin followed the guard out of the war room. He briefly debated fetching Rhiannon, but decided against it as she deserved some sleep after spending most of her time with him in boring meetings. The sorcerers were likely to still be there when she woke up.

The throne room was empty except for the two sorcerers when he arrived, most people in the castle busy elsewhere these days, and guards taking shifts on the castle walls for the siege. He'd met Sorceress Isobel during the Siege of Messina four years ago, and she was as beautiful as he remembered. Long, silver-blonde hair cascaded down her back, a stark contrast to her deep-blue dress, which he knew matched her eyes perfectly. The man next to her towered over her slight form, and Baudwin couldn't recall having met him before.

"King Baudwin!" Sorceress Isobel's face lit up as she caught sight of him, and she smiled warmly.

"Sorceress Isobel." He nodded his head in greeting, before turning to her dark-haired companion. "Sorcerer Wray."

"I don't think you've met Wray," the sorceress said. "He wasn't at Messina as he was busy elsewhere."

Baudwin smiled as he greeted the other man. The sorcerers were known for their secrecy. They answered to no one but the Gods, and what they were up to most of the time was anyone's guess. Protecting the realm, supposedly.

"I've heard a lot about you, King Baudwin," Sorcerer Wray said. "It was a heroic thing you did during the battle. Saving one of your men, risking injury to yourself. It seems it has healed better than they led me to believe, though."

Isobel frowned for a moment before her eyes widened. "You're not using a cane! What's happened?"

"Very good pain management." It had been weeks, and while his leg still pained him, it was negligible most of the time, and so he had finally divested himself of the cane that had been his constant companion over the past four years. "A combination of an elixir and relatively frequent ointments."

"You must have an excellent apothecary. Few are skilled enough to create such remedies."

A smile tugged on his lips. "Actually, it's my wife."

Both sorcerers stared at him, and after an odd sideways look at each other, Isobel smiled. But it looked a little less sunny than her previous one. "Your wife is an apothecary?"

"No, she's..." He frowned. A witch? No. She'd repeatedly told him she wasn't. He shrugged. "I don't know what she is, but she is very skilled with herbs and potions."

"We'd love to meet her," Sorcerer Wray said.

"I'm sure she'd be delighted to meet you once she's awake. It's been a trying few days, and she's taking a nap."

"It's always an honour to meet people who are so talented. I think even among our ranks there's only one who could brew up such a thing."

Isobel nodded. "Grand Sorcerer Arawn is very accomplished in these things. Which is fortunate for us, as he could save Queen Shaeanne when she was poisoned with a rare substance this summer."

"I heard about that. Is she fully recovered?" Baudwin had never met the queen, but he knew the High King and could only imagine the worry if one's wife was in peril.

"Yes, they could administer the antidote in time. But it was a nasty poison and could easily have killed. Fortunately, we keep a small stock of most antidotes, even the most rare, in Highglaive."

"Which reminds me," Baudwin raised his eyebrows questioningly. "What brings you to Ossol?"

"I do apologise for the timing," Isobel said with a grimace. "We didn't realise you were in the middle of a siege until we arrived. I'm after a very specific book and have been told I might find it in the royal library."

"You've come here to look for a book?"

"It must sound absurd, but yes. I can't tell you why, but I have my reasons." She gave him an apologetic half-smile.

He chuckled. "I never expected to understand sorcerers. You are, of course, always welcome to our books. The castle is far from the city walls and should remain safe for now."

The sorceress made a vague gesture in the general direction of the army camped outside the city gates. "Do you... Would you like some help?"

"Isobel," Wray interjected, a tone of warning in his voice.

"Well, it's a silly rule!" she muttered. "I don't see why we can't step in when we see something unreasonable happening. What are the Gods going to do? Bend us over and spank us?"

The sorcerer stared at his companion, and Baudwin suspected he was as well. The image she conjured was... unusual.

Wray cleared his throat. "I suspect the Gods can do a lot more than that if we anger them."

"I personally suspect they care little about what we do," Isobel grumbled. "It's not as if they stepped in and helped us against the Dark Disciple."

"Goddess Dhim did."

"Against the advice of every other God!"

Feeling as if this wasn't a discussion he was meant to overhear, Baudwin discretely coughed, causing both sorcerers to whip their heads around. They certainly looked as if they'd forgotten his presence.

"Thank you for the offer," he said, trying to suppress a smile. "But I don't want you to get into trouble. We have this in hand. Reinforcements will arrive soon."

"Very well," Isobel said, but she still sounded disgruntled. Taking a deep breath—or sighing deeply, he wasn't sure—she smiled. "Would you mind showing us where the library is?"

"Of course, this way."

Baudwin motioned for them to follow and quickly led them through the hallways towards the part of the castle that held the library. They were walking down the portrait gallery when he realised that the two guests had stopped and were no longer following him. Turning around, he found them in front of Rhiannon's portrait, looking at it and whispering between themselves.

"Why do you have a portrait of Mairin?" Isobel asked when he walked back to them.

Frowning, Baudwin looked up at the portrait. "You must be mistaken," he said. "This is my wife, Queen Rhiannon."

Isobel shook her head. "That might be her name now. But I knew her as Mairin. You remember her too, Wray, don't you?"

The sorcerer nodded.

"Baudwin," Isobel placed a hand on his arm, making him look down at her concerned face. "I don't know what she's told you. But the woman in this portrait is—or at least was—Mairin. And she was an adept in Highglaive at the same time I was."

~~~~~~