'Now you must tell me how this is possible?' Wyll said the moment the door closed behind them.

She'd kept her hood drawn as he'd led her through the castle to what appeared to be his chamber. She'd expected to be taken to the Great Hall, to be interrogated before Commandant Pagel and then Lord Ravol before being allowed within proximity of Valdr. 

Had anyone but Dacian met them at the gates she would have been.

The chamber was not overly large but was well-appointed like the rest of Alathy's castle. Its main feature was a large circular aspect at one corner overlooking the town and its bustling port. She could see lights glowing in open windows, soldiers swarming like ants through its streets, the sound of drums and revelry; a town hosting an army. A chill swept up her spine as she took in the number of ships floating just beyond the shadow of the bay. Hundreds, easily. Some with Zybar's black horned sigil, but a great many more with the blue and red Uphine flower of the Dacian Isles.

She turned to him, a question in her eyes. 'How is what possible?'

'The realm thinks you... dead. Your body was brought to us... or rather, what remained of it.' He shuddered at some memory.

'Lies and schemes. Which you swallowed as easily as a child swallows mooncake.' 

Even in the dim light, she saw him flush. Then he hardened, bruised by her derision.

'We had no reason to believe otherwise. Azura had fallen; the king was dead, the Crown Prince was dead. When news of your death at the hands of the Leothine Commander reached us it was easy to believe it.' Ah, yes. Her brutal, fabled death at Theodan's hand. She had to try hard not to roll her eyes. 'Now...' he stepped closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Now, you return to us wearing a collar of black steel and a Leoth by your side to tell us that Zybar is our enemy?'

His meaning was clear. He suspected her to be here on some perfidious mission. Just as Leoth's council had. 'You think I have returned as a weapon of Leoth? To harm you, Wyllan? Gods, I return to save you. War with Leoth. This was the advice of my brother's consul of advisors? The wisest minds of the realm. To send scores of our people to slaughter at the hands of the deadliest warriors in Ethis?

He blanched a little. 'War was our only course. They struck us in our hearts when they took you from us. Were we to stand by and do nothing?'

'You mean as you did when they struck Azura? The realm to which I belonged?' Accusation blazed in her eyes. 'Was that not too a strike in your hearts? Why did Calate not raise their swords then?'

'The king favoured neutrality,' he said carefully.  Dacian had not favoured this. He would never openly disavow the actions of his king, but she could see it in the set of his mouth beneath his thick beard, and in the way his fingers curled to fists, released, curled again. 'Our strength is in our sea forces, Fara. We could not have hoped to match Leoth and Zybar on land.'

'So you left Azura to rot.' Accusation turned to fury, blurring her vision. 'I suppose it is fortunate Valdr's Zybarian wife has come along with her army of barbarians to strengthen our forces.'

'After Valdr received word of your death, it was to be war with or without Zybar. His grief, his rage,' he swallowed, shook his head. 'It was... immeasurable.'

A chill scraped up her spine. She recalled his grief well. It would often pour from him, after. I do not dare think what I would become if I lost you... if someone were to take you from me. 

What had he become? It frightened her to think of it.

She took a breath and met Wyllan's eye. 'Then I must hope for all our sakes that when he looks upon me alive and well he will be minded toward peace. For I will not see Azura's fate wrought upon Calate, and I will not stand side by side with Zybar for any cause. Let the Gods attest that I will stand with Leoth before I would stand with that monster and his army of dogs.'

He looked horrified. 'What you speak is treason.'

'Treason is to stand against your king. When Galyn became my husband, Sylvan became my king,' she reminded him. 'If Valdr wants me by his side then he will choose whose loyalty he desires more: Torrik's or mine.'

Wyll stared at her in awed silence a moment, before a shadow crept over his blue gaze. 'You still have not answered my question. How is it that you are here, alive and in the service of a Leoth, now as we prepare our armies for attack?'

She glowered at him, icy. 'I am in servitude to no-one, Lord Dacian. The collar was given to me in Azura. To protect me from Zybar. Do you truly think I am here to harm my own blood? My own brother?' She left a pause for him to answer but he said nothing. Suspicion hung from him and it saddened her. 'I had always considered us of similar minds, Wyll, but it seems now that we did not know the make of each other at all.'

Something hot flared in his eyes. 'You forget I know you well. You forget that I spent many years learning all there was to know of you.'

'Then why is it you look at me as though you do not recognise me?'

He blinked, expression softening. When he spoke his voice had a note of melancholy in it. 'Perhaps it is... perhaps it is because I look upon a ghost, Fara.'

For some reason, this angered her. She straightened her spine and met his gaze. 'I am no ghost, Wyllan. I am still a princess of the blood and you will take care to address me as such.'

He blinked, then bowed his head a fraction. 'Yes, your grace.'

'Now, I command you to bring my brother to me at once.'

'Yes, your grace,' he said again.  His strong stride carried him to the door, where he stopped and turned back to her. 'After the audience with Sylvan's envoys, I suggested sailing a fleet through the Whitevain Strait. An attack from the north could have taken out many of Zybar's ships, their camp upon the beach. We could have provided reinforcements to the city. When this was refused, I proposed attacking Zybar from the east to force them to return home to defend it. It would have risked my own ships, my own men -- not the realm's.'

'The consul refused?'

'Valdr refused. Though Panos favoured it.'

Panos. Her heart cinched tightly. Did he live still? Why would Valdr allow Panos to attack a Leothine camp but not risk his sea captain in a far less foolhardy plan? It did not make sense.

'Why did you bring me here?' She asked, looking around the chamber. 'To this room, away from the eyes of his guard dogs?'

Wyll pressed his lips together in a slight grimace. 'Because in truth I do not know that all would welcome your return, princess. Many on the consul have now come to see this war as a chance to rid Ethis of Leoth forever.'

Unease twisted in her gut. If the Consul desired war then peace would depend on Valdr's desire alone. She tried to take comfort in the fact that she was well versed in the pull and sway of Valdr's desires, that she had often been in command of that pull and sway.

'Does that mean I am in danger here, Lord Dacian?'

He shook his head. 'Valdr would let no harm come to you. There was such certainty in his tone. The paradox stunned her a moment. 'Nor would I.'

She gave him a small smile of gratitude and nodded once.

'I will bring him to you.'

He pulled open the door and slipped from the room. She stared after him as she began moving pieces and weighing others. Where did Wyll's conviction lie? His loyalty was with his king, but did he truly favour war with Leoth? Support a war pact with Zybar? He belonged to the sea. Had mastered the art of trade and order within Calate's busy trading waters. She had never been given the impression that his soul burned for the glory and thrill of battle. Could she convince him to side with her if it should come to it?

She looked around the chamber and tried to collect her thoughts, steady her heart, calm her mind. She was not the same Fara who left Valdr all those moons ago. She had survived war, death, a spoils claiming, multiple flights through the sky, a brute of a king, and a council of leothine who wanted her dead. She would not cower or allow herself to be diminished. Not here, not again. She would do all she could to ensure there was something left for this babe within her.

Yes, but with Theodan by your side. Who are you without him? Who are you here? Before Valdr. The same as you have always been. Weak. Ruined. Diminished. His.

She shook the traitorous thoughts from her mind and looked up at the moon. As always the sight of its pale wonder frightened her. Humbled her. She had also survived its claim on her. She would survive Valdr's. She belonged to none. Even as she thought it the band of steel in the pocket of her cloak weight heavy against her.

Time stood still as her resolve pulsed and ebbed, her mind turning over all of the ways she had been altered, changed. All that she had seen, had suffered, had learned, would aid her now. Would make her stronger now. She knew more of Torrik, of Leoth, of Azura than any member of the consul. Arielle's sacrifice would not be in vain. Theodan's belief in her would not be misplaced. She would show the same strength and sacrifice for him that he had shown for her. All he had done for her, she would repay. Belief flowed through her veins as she closed her eyes to pray. 

Please, Goddess, protect him now as he has protected me. Do what you must to protect him. And then, because she thought perhaps she longed for it more than she longed for peace, she added a final plea. Please permit me to look upon him once more before I leave this mortal realm. Please, Goddess, return him to me one final time, I beg of you.

Behind her, she heard the door open.

And every fragment of strength left her.