She sipped at the honeyed wine, letting the syrupy sweetness rest on her tongue a moment before swallowing.

How many cups had she drunk today? Not enough, she decided as the Dheta ran the fine-tipped brush along her lash line as she closed her eyes. The pigment was warm against her eyelid, the movement, soothing.

Another Dheta took her free hand and smoothed the fragranced oil gently into her palm, then her wrist, before turning her hand over to coat the top then between each finger. As it soaked into the skin leaving her flesh tingling and alive, she felt the rings slide onto her fingers, felt the fastening of the thick band of gold around her wrist. 

They moved to her neck and settled the vast jewelled necklace around her throat, laying the finely spun net of gold over her shoulders. She blinked open her eyes to see its effect. It was as though a spider had spun its web about her neck, across her throat. It was heavy but not unpleasant. When the Dheta stood back from her and bowed her head, Fara looked at herself in the polished surface of the mirror.

The person staring back at her was not Cassi's Fara or Galyn's Fara. Not even Theodan's Fara. This was Valdr's Fara. She wore what he'd instructed them she was to wear.  She was polished how he'd instructed her to be polished. She was his ornament. His trinket. She felt powerless to stop it now that she was here. How quickly she had returned to who she was before. How easily he took control of her all over again.

Except now the escape was not sorcery and deceit. It was war. Theodan would come for her, with an army at his back and a sword in his hand. All she need do was endure it.

She lifted the cup and drained the contents.

The Dheta behind her did not lift her head nor meet her eye. They held their small tools in their hands and stared at the floor awaiting her instruction.

"You may go," she said finally. The Dheta gave a short bow and both left the chamber.

As soon as the chamber door closed behind them, she opened the small drawer of the jewellery chest and pulled out one of the small vials of powder she'd procured from the Apothist.  She tipped half its contents into the empty cup and slid the container into the pocket of her gown and stood from the dressing table. At a trestle table near the balcony, she refilled her cup with honeyed wine and swirled it a few times to dissolve the powder.

The sourness of the Dresyth sparked across her tongue  but was soon overpowered by the cloying sweetness of the wine. Dresyth. Used to calm the most agitated of minds, the most excruciating pain, and in smaller doses, to elevate one's soul to a gentler place.  She wondered which of the three she suffered most.

It did not take long. The warmth spread like warm milk through her veins and hummed lulled across her mind. Her tense body eased and softened, a low humming settling in her stomach. 

She could do this. Would do this until he came for her. She would be whatever she needed to be to survive. She could not save Calate now, but she would survive. For herself. For the babe in her womb. For Theodan. His sacrifices would not be in vain.

A breeze drifted in through the drapes to whisper over her cheek and dance over her heated skin. She took another sip and gazed out at the familiar view. More vivid than it had been in her memory, more beautiful than it had been in her nightmares. Prissia's glass peaks glimmered under the moonlight, starlight dancing across its roof as it would the surface of an iced lake. It shone sharp and cold where the Golden Palace had always glowed with the warmth of the sun above.

"They are waiting for us." Valdr's voice rarely surprised her. She expected him. Always. She'd learned this long ago, and it was not hard to fall back into those old ways again. She did not tense as he came to stand behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders as his lips pressed hot against the column of her neck. His skin smelled of darkberry and wood, his flesh as drunk from it as hers was of Roselily and Dava.

"A carnival of unnecessary extravagance," she said, lifting her cup to drink. "It was your idea, not mine."

"They wish to celebrate the return of their beloved princess, you cannot hold that against them." He whispered, tracing his finger up her nape.

"You know as well as I that there are many down there who still believe me to be a Leoth spy."

"And this is your chance to prove otherwise," he replied. "Stand at my side and show them you are mine."

She held back a scoff. Nothing would prove her innocence to those who believed that - and in some respects perhaps they even had the right of it. She found she cared little. She'd come back here to achieve one thing, and she had failed. Valdr would not send peace terms to Leoth. His vanity and pride would not allow it, his delusion would not either. He truly believed he could win this war. She took another sip of wine.

"Did you miss it?" He said, resting his head on her shoulder to gaze out at the view.

"Not for a single moment." Her words came easy, her body loose and warm. The tendrils of the potion stretch out in her limbs, down her spine, push into her fingertips. Valdr pressed his nose to her hair and inhaled. "I'd wished never to return."

She felt him tense. "But return you did. To me."

I did not choose to. She wanted to say. But her mind was a soft thing now with no desire to fight. 

He placed a soft kiss on her neck and uncoiled himself from her body. Moving to stand against the stone opposite. He wore his hair brushed back from his forehead, exposing the pale stretch of flawless skin beneath. They'd combed some colouring through it; a deep indigo shade that shone lighter under the spill of moonlight cresting through its waves. His crown of twisted silver had been nestled artfully into it. He wore a silk coat of the same colour of deep purple, bright silver gemstones sewn into the long flowing fabric, the collar open to show his pale throat. On his legs, he wore loose-fitting silk pants. It was a king's ceremonial attire worn freely, loosely, less formally than was custom. Beneath his eyes, he wore a dusting of pigment the same dark shade of his hair.

His beauty was dangerous almost, predator-like. Valdr's outward beauty had always caused an avalanche of nausea in the pit of her stomach. For she knew what lurked beneath it.

She imagined the women of the court faint with want, and no doubt he had chosen his attire and adornment with those thoughts in mind. Nothing Valdr did was without careful calculation. She imagined Dura of Zybar breathless with adoration and desire. Her small body trembling with nerves and longing at his presence. Fara swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat.

"I plan to gift Dacian his betrothal tonight," Valdr said, fiddling with one of the rings adorning his fingers. It was a thick band of twisted silver, a golden stone glittering atop it.

"If you think he will take your mistress without complaint, you are a fool." She remarked, noting how her tongue felt vaguely numb now.

"Oh, I expect he will take it without complaint, for Dacian has a lot to be thankful for," Valdr looked at her pointedly. "First my mercy for his allowing a Leoth into my presence who killed our ally, and now this. Though I admit, a King's mistress is hardly a King's sister."

Her tongue felt numb and her words emboldened. "You know, you would more easily secure his loyalty and his men were you to simply honour father's betrothal. For what man would ever turn against his king and his wife's brother?" She had no desire to marry Dacian, but she knew how Valdr loathed the idea, and it was sport to remind him of it.

His nostrils flared, his jaw clenching. "His loyalty to me should be because I am his lord and his king, not because my sister warms his bed." 

"And you test his loyalty by this insult. For that is what offering him Delphine of Hirath is. All of Calate knows she is your whore. And all of Calate knows that he does not take insults lightly. What was that Lord's name again... the one who drank too much ale and called him an islander half-breed?" She pretended to ponder it. "Salsyon?"

Valdr scoffed. "You think he would dare hang his king from the ramparts by his breeches?"

"Oh, no of course not, but I would rather enjoy it if he did."

His eyes flashed dangerously as he reached out to snatch the cup from her hands. "You're drunk, sister. It's unbecoming of a princess of the blood."

"Then I suggest you lock this chamber door behind you because I plan to get drunker still this eve."

She held his gaze a long moment before she took a small step toward him, then another. When she pressed her body against his, a small sound left his throat, his lips parting. Then she reached down and snatched the cup from his loosened grip.  Pushing herself off his body, she turned her back on him and moved into the chamber, draining the cup as she went. She swiped her tongue over her lips to catch the last remnant of Dresyth that clung there. Her blood buzzed, warm and uncaring.

"Ravol thinks I should send you to Kaerndaal,' Valdr said then, voice low.  "That perhaps if you are forced to worship at the feet of the Iorr then it will remind you of where your loyalty lies."

Kaerndaal. A monastery in northernmost Virheim run by tongueless priestesses and blind priests. A place of nightmares. A place used by parents for the most unruly of children.

She turned a head over her shoulder to look at him. "I expect he'd very much enjoy to see my tongue removed. For the fewer voices around you, the louder his own will sound."

He pushed himself off the wall and came toward her slowly. "Would you like to know what I told him when he suggested it?"

She said nothing. Waited. When he was close enough that she could scent his skin he reached out to smooth the tip of his thumb over her lip.  

"I told him that you already serve me well on your knees and that I am much too fond of your tongue to have it removed." He smiled, his eyes gleaming darkly.

She snapped her head away from his touch and glared at him. "So this is how it is to be, then? Each time I displease Ravol I am to be threatened with marriage to a Zybar dog or imprisonment in a convent? This is what I have returned to, brother? You prayed to every God of Ethis for my return so you could have me live in this prison?"

The heat in his eyes faded, taken over by a measure of guilt.

He looked down for a moment before lifting his head and closing the distance between them. She allowed him to pull her into him, and pressed against his chest like this she could feel his heartbeat, thunderous and quick.

"No," he promised. "It is not. Ravol worries for me - for he knows how weak you make me. How weak you have always made me - but he shall never convince me to remove you from my side." He pulled back to look at her. "You are my weakness but you are also my strength - you give me the courage to do as I must. Make the choices I must. If not for you, if not for my love for you, we would not stand where we do now."

She frowned. "Surrounded by war?"

His hand moved to hold her cheek. "With a claim to every throne in Ethis," he said, definitively. "If we succeed in crushing Leoth, who do you think shall rule over it?"

Fara swallowed, hating the victorious gleam that danced in Valdr's eyes. "You forced my hand by marrying the princeling, and though I hated you for it, I am thankful for it too. But must you fight me at every turn? We are stronger when we are together, you know this, my love. There is nothing I cannot achieve if you are by my side." She looked at him aghast. He truly believed it. Truly believed he could rule Ethis, defeat Leoth, keep her with him. 

"Tell me of Elyon of Lethane," she asked. 

His body stiffened, straightening. He dropped his hand from her cheek and took a step back."What is it you wish to know?"

"You promised you would not hurt him."

He sighed. "That was before he slaughtered our closest ally."

"You need him alive if he is to be exchanged for Panos."

"He is alive." Valdr said, tightly.

"Then let me visit with him... speak with him."

He blinked, staring at her as though she had lost her mind. "And how would it look to those lords who doubt you? Who think you a traitor, still? Who think you a spy of Leoth? How would it look for you to visit with the beast who murdered our ally? It is impossible." He shook his head.

"Nothing is impossible, Valdr."

"Is it not enough that I managed to hold onto him?" He snapped. "When the Zybar demanded he be dragged back to their realm in chains to face his crime? I relieved him from that fate and still I receive little thanks!"

She watched him. Watched the way his mouth trembled with emotion, his eyes wide and unblinking. Yes, it was true. He had prevented Elyon from being taken by Zybar after Torrik's execution. The question was, why? She had not asked it of him. She would have - she would have begged and sacrificed anything to save Elyon from that fate - but Valdr had ordered Elyon brought to Prissia before Fara had even known he was still alive. Why?

"If you think he will betray Theodan of Teredia or his realm, you do not know the Leothine," she said. "They are not built like us. Their realm and their God lives inside them."

"We shall see. We shall see, sister," he said. When Valdr smiled a small cold smile, she felt something slink down her spine.

"Promise me again that you will not harm him. That you will not allow Zybar to harm him." She would find a way to free him, she just needed to keep him alive and unharmed until then. "Promise me that you will not spill his blood in any way. He still saved my life, returned me to you. For that, you owe him a debt."

She saw the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. "I promise no Calatian, nor Zybarian shall harm him in any way."

She swallowed, bowed her head slightly in thanks.

"Now, come, let us greet our guests." He reached out for her hand. Dread and Dryseth heavy in her blood, she let him pull her towards the door.