She'd dreamt of Theodan every night since her return to Prissia. Almost as if he were trying to reach her through the barrier of sleep, the tall glass walls and polished silver gates of Prissia unable to keep him out. The dreams were not always a comfort.

Sometimes she dreamt of losing her child, awaking wet between her thighs  and reaching down expecting to see Galyn's babe bleeding from her as it had done before, but each time finding nothing but remnants of her own pleasure, sticky and hot like warmed honey. Sometimes her mind was her own but she wore the body of another,  Theodan too. One who felt like him and sounded like him, one whose arms felt like strength and devotion when they wrapped around her, but one who looked like another. A red-eyed, moonlight-skinned god who could only be The Dark One.

It should perhaps worry her that He was inside her dreams, that he sometimes spoke to her with Theodan's voice and held her with Theodan's body, but there was no menace in him. Only power and pleasure. All of it welcome and glorious.

Each dream felt like a message, important and necessary, and when she woke she felt strong from it and flooded with purpose. Except the more she came awake the less vivid the dream would feel until it melted away into nothingness with the rise of the day. The yearning for him remained, however. Each time she dreamt of him, the ache inside her grew, need for him running hot through her veins. And each morning she let the maids wash away the memory of it, dampened cloths running between her thighs and beneath her breasts leaving only traces of Poe flower and lemon behind.

Valdr spent his days sequestered behind his solar doors with his Nati and closest Lords, coming to her only at night.  Sometimes to talk, sometimes only to hold her. When he wanted more than this, she knew. For he would arrive clean - he was always scrubbed clean when he came to her for this - and dressed for sleep. The door to her chamber would open and his eyes would be black and shining before he strode toward her with purpose and fire. Despite what he'd said in Alathy, he never stayed the night with her again. Afterwards, he would always kiss her tender and soft, whisper his blessings to the gods for returning her to him, and slip quietly from her chamber to his own. Whether he went to his wife's chamber after she had no idea. Her own ritual was the same. Wash him from her body. Add the small spoon of cerulean blue powder to her honeyed wine. Sleep. Dream.

Dacian had been welcomed back onto his table of counsellors as they discussed war strategies and the movement of troops along Calate's land and sea borders. Whether he was fully absolved from his part in the death of Torrik of Zybar, she knew not. She had not been. She saw it in the looks of those who had been favourable to the pact with Zybar. She would not rid herself of the rumours of 'Leoth Spy' so easily. She cared not. Whenever she asked Valdr of Elyon, he told her that he was 'alive'. She told herself this was all she could ask for. That it was enough.

She spent her days reacquainting herself with the place she used to call home. Walking it's immaculately tended paths and gardens until her feet yelped quietly, she visited the stables and chose a mare to ride out into the forest as hard and as fast as she could until she met the cliffs edge and stared endlessly out across the ash sea towards Leoth, wondering whether he lived or died. She was confident he lived.  Too stubborn to die, too honorable to his promise to let anyone move him from keeping it. She also felt she would feel some shift in her soul if he no longer walked upon the mortal realm, the death of a hope she nurtured and kept safe inside her  if he was gone from this world. The dreams kept him alive in her mind and in her heart, if he were gone, the dreams would cease - she knew not why but she was certain of it.

On the fifth day after their return, Dura invited her to tea with her. She'd expected to hear from her sooner and worried that some underhandedness was at play within the palace - by Ravol - to keep them apart, and so was relieved by the invitation when it came. After tea in Dura's chamber, they walked the inner walls of Prissia, where Fara pointed out where the sun was most kind through the day and where the scents were most delicious in the gardens. She'd scanned the girl's flesh and eyes for any evidence of Valdr's cruelty but found nothing. She still did not know the frequency of Valdr's visits to her, or if there were any, but she was as smooth and unmarred as a babe. Her gaze still shone with a bright innocence that continued to remind her of Cassie.

'It's as beautiful as I imagined it would be,' Dura had mooned, gazing down at the patterns of flowers and stoned walkways below. The palace gardeners worked silently and diligently under the heat of the noonday sun. The air was cool but the direct glare of the sun was still a challenge, wide-brimmed hats encased in white sheer fabric to protect their skin. 'You must have been so very happy here as a child.'

Fara tried not to react as she considered how she might answer. 'There were happy times,' she said. 'With my sister and I. We laughed so much together. I thought it would always be how it was then. Before Cassine died, I had no notion of the world. None at all. Gods, I was a foolish child.'

Dura had remained silent for a long moment. Then she spoke, soft as the wind. 'You must miss her terribly.'

'Every moment of every day, I wish she was here with me. That I could talk to her, as a woman - as a sister.'

Dura's voice was small when she spoke. 'I thought very ill things of you. Before. You already know that I wished for your death many times.' Was that guilt she heard in her tone? Fara opened her mouth to speak, to excuse those ill thoughts, but Dura shook her head, determined. She turned from her and went to stand at the opposing wall, gazing out across the leagues of sparkling blue that stretched around the world toward Leoth. 'I was certain I'd never hated anyone as deeply as I hated you. When I thought of you all I could think of was what you had taken from me, what you enjoyed that should have been mine. Since the day my father told me of my betrothal, I dreamed of Galyn every day. I thought of our children, of the sons I would bear him, of watching them grow into princes who would be kind and good. I thought of the lives we would make for ourselves and the Azurians.' She was silent for so long then, Fara moved toward her.

'Then I stole those dreams from you.' It was not a question, only an understanding.

'Perhaps they were always foolish dreams.' Dura shrugged. There was a beat, then another, before Dura turned her head to look at her. Her eyes were wide and her expression hesitant. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, uncertain.

'There is something you wish to ask me?' Fara said. 'Something you are afraid to ask. Something you think you cannot.'

The girl blinked, a pretty blush rising to her cheeks. She knotted her hands in the green silk of her skirts. 'Whatever it is, you may ask me.' She owed much to this girl who'd been dragged here to fill Valdr's bed instead of Galyn's. Who'd been used by her father to further his need of war and dominion. This she could give her. She waited as Dura gathered her thoughts, or her courage.

'I know it should not matter,' Dura swiped a tongue over her lower lip. 'It is sinful even to wonder. I love Valdr, with all my heart, he is my king and master, and my heart is his, you must believe this.'

Fara's heart broke at the conviction in her tone. At the terror there that Fara might speak of this to Valdr. Which she would never do.

'I believe it,' she told Dura.

Dura smiled a small smile of relief. Nodded. 'It is only... Well.. I wondered, what sort of man he was? Galyn? We exchanged some letters but we never looked upon each other, never once spoke in person - which is as well for I am certain he would not have wanted me if he had.' This too was said with so much conviction that she felt her heart break a little more. 'But I wondered so long about what he might be like, what his voice sounded like, whether he liked poetry or horses, whether his skin would wear blue best or green.' She lost herself now a little in the memory of her love of him, and it was sweet to witness. A faint smile rose to Fara's lips. 'I wondered too if he was gentle and kind like his people believed, or cold-hearted like my father. Though I am certain he was not. For he was beloved by his people. No one who is beloved can be anything but gentle and benevolent.' She seemed to stop herself, frightened then of her runaway tongue.  She looked around them sheepishly. There were guards of course, but they were far enough away that they could not possibly hear what was being spoken in the closeness between them.

Fara allowed herself to think of him then, something she had not done in some time. Often when she thought of Galyn it was with guilt and self-loathing, grief too. 'He was gentle.' Fara told her, quietly. 'And kind. He was brave and devoted to his people. They say otherwise now, that he put the needs of his prick above all else when he wed me, but it wasn't true.' He'd never have wed her if not for those softly spoken words and the enchantment encircling her wrist. 'He was the kindest male I've ever known. There was no darkness in him, no malice. None at all. Only sunlight and laughter. He rarely raised his voice.' In fact, she'd heard him do it only once - the day he demanded she leave Azura and not look back. The day war came. The day the city fell.  He was almost the very opposite of Valdr in every way. So different too from Theodan. She wanted to talk more of Galyn, for when had she last been given the chance, but she could see tears shimmering behind the surface of Dura's eyes and she was not sure she'd said anything useful at all. 'I thought he wore blue best,' she added as an addendum.

She had an image of him then, in a long silk tunic of sea-blue. His eyes glittering with love and desire. She felt an ache in her chest from the knowledge that his beautiful body was by now rotted and soft in its tomb. Had they even given him a proper burial? Gods, it was most likely they did not. The Theodan she had come to know would not defile a soldier's body, but the Zybar... A new ache rose inside her, tears rushing to her eyes. For comfort, she pressed her hand over her tummy, however Dura's gaze lowered to it, and so she made a show of smoothing her dress instead.

When Dura's eyes met hers again she smiled softly. 'You speak of him as though you loved him deeply.'

'I did. Very much so. He was a good man, and would have been a great king.'

A crease appeared between Dura's brows. 'Then why do you so easily forgive the Leothine for what they did? You hate the Zybar so much, yet the Leoth do not suffer the same ire from you. The monster who killed him before enslaving you seems to have earned both your forgiveness and your trust. I do not understand.'

Fara took a deep breath. She understood how it looked to Dura. How it looked to anyone, in fact. But how was she to make anyone understand what she could hardly understand herself?

'At first, I hated him,' Fara began.  'I wanted to see him bleed - to see them all bleed for what they had done. Zybar too. Vengeance was the only thing that kept me alive when I was marched to the slave camp and rounded up as a spoil. I ate it. I craved it. It sat on my tongue like a thirst and filled my belly like a glorious feast. But I understood that while it may have been the Leoth's blade that slew him, it was not the Leoth's fault that he was dead. Galyn was always going to die by an enemy blade.'

'What do you mean?' Dura asked, blinking owlishly. She let her gaze roam Fara's face as though the answer to understanding was somewhere on it. Should she tell her what the High Visier had shown her? That Dura's own father had planned Galyn's death on the night he took her to his marital bed? But what good would it do her to have such knowledge now? Would it comfort her, Dura who had lost everyone, who had been brought from her home and been dropped here in Valdr's nest, to know her father had always sought to kill her beloved.  No. It would not. She could see not a single good reason to break her heart and so she would not. Could not.

She looked away, out over the eastern ramparts now and towards the peaks of the Gelder in the far off distance. Mist hung over them like a veil. 'I mean only that he would have desired a warrior's death. Would not have wanted to waste away an old man upon a throne.' It was a lie, but a kind one she decided.

'I would not have made him happy,' Dura said softly. 

'He would have been kind to you, Dura,' Fara said, turning to look at her again. She wanted to ask her of Valdr, if he had struck her, hurt her in any way, but she could not find the words on her tongue. More than that, she wanted to protect this sweet girl from his poison - as she had been unable to protect herself.

'Are you happy here?' She asked instead, watching Dura's face carefully for the unspoken response. 'Or do you miss home?' Dura flicked her eyes to Fara and Fara was relieved to see nothing abjectly painful there.

'I am determined to be happy here,' she said. 'I feel as though I have been waiting my entire life to be a wife, a queen, a mother. I shall do everything in my power to be exactly what Valdr requires of me.'

Over Dura's shoulder, she saw movement beneath one of the archways, a shadow dipping back under the cover of the western tower. She turned from Dura and began walking in the opposite direction, Dura following dutifully behind. A spy. Whether it was Ravol's or Valdr's she could not say. Though one was rarely employed without the knowledge of the other. She was certain their words had not been heard, but their daily walks would certainly be of interest.

'If you ever need anything, or if you are ever... troubled by anything here...' she kept her voice soft, beneath the noise of the wind. 'Please know that you may come to me. That you have my confidence, Dura.' 

Dura's footsteps quickened so that they were side by side once again. 'I will bear that in mind, Fara. Thank you..'