Sylvie stood before the King, shivers running down her spine. At the beginning of this, she'd had her mage-senses running at full strength due to her nerves. At that level, she could track spells mid-cast and track even small muscle tics. Her heart had nearly stopped when she'd realized that the bait had worked perfectly. She felt Firkin stiffen slightly beside her and knew he'd seen exactly who the Traitor was. That glance between the Traitor and the other person that was responsible for all of this made her feel like there was a vise around her throat.

She was grateful to Quinton and Harken's banter for distracting her from the urge to just kill those two Traitors. She made some handsigns in thanks, because they had let her answer the King calmly. Then he asked her to tell him what she thought was going on.

“Maybe it's all the different lives I've led from a Lord's pampered daughter to warrior to named Traitor, but there is a pattern to this. You just have to combine the inherited duties to other countries with personal goals and desires. Your Majesty knows how precariously balanced Vanihan is when it comes to national politics. The only reason we still exist is that we're surrounded by natural defenses on three sides of our country. The fourth is a war that's been going on for thirty years. That's oddity number one.”

“A thirty year war?”

She smirked slightly. “Actually, though there are people ensuring that the war continues as long as a more stable economy is needed, I was talking about the natural defenses. Vanihan started as a small country that had few resources aside from a few mages that were very strong. How could a country and a young ruler like that gain such political power and might unless the other countries had originally set it up as a sort of puppet country?”

She tilted her head at the shock that went through the room. “Exactly. Vanihan was only meant to last long enough for one of the other countries to take its place. None of them took into account what would happen when all of their spies and assassins saw the benefits to the balance between the countries and decided to keep Vanihan in power.”

King Novan snorted. “That makes more sense the the history my grandfather told me.”

“If you'd read through my father's entire library at home because you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but practice sword and magic, you'd probably have figured it out, too. Of course, that also means that the noblemen that were part of the first court of Vanihan were all those spies and assassins. That includes the mages.”

“Are you saying that you had no choice but to be a Traitor due to some ancient debt of your household?”

Sylvie hissed and gritted her teeth. “I may have sounded like I was jesting earlier, but I was actually framed, your Majesty.” Firkin's arm around her became as hard as iron, and she grimaced. “Be that as it may, my point is Dark magic and blood-binding started this country. It came very close to ending it five years ago. The only reason it didn't was a mage that didn't realize what was going on broke the Darkening spell that had been cast and sent feedback to the original caster. That feedback destroyed most of that mages abilities, making everything after that much less troublesome and powerful until he got somebody to Restore his mage gift.”

“Actually, a recent conversation between my daughter and someone else revealed that she was the mage that broke Darkening curse.” Lord Hillyard stated in an almost perfunctory way.

Sylvie wanted to tell Hillyard that he was no father of hers, but took a deep breath instead. She hated having to hold on to her temper. It made her cranky. “I'd been named a Traitor before that.”

“Because you were having secret meetings with foreign Ambassadors and exchanging letters with somebody we never found. With the information found in your files with the Golden Guard, we couldn't have you be a part of court even if you did break that curse.”

Sylvie threw up her hands. “By the Gods. Really? Since when does that make me a Traitor? Every one of your counselors meets with foreign Ambassadors on a regular basis, mainly because their families are from the foreign lands. The Golden Guard acts as...many things with a regular basis. Including counselors and Ambassadors. I was doing my job!”

“Your insubordination on many levels and outright ignoring my many orders contradicts that.” Ex-Captain Willems stated.

“Yes, well, I was rather more concerned about how many people made it out alive rather than how to make the numbers work out in another country's favor Prince Willeck of Hamaryd.”

Under the hubbub that followed Firkin hissed at her. “The plan, not your temper, the plan, please Sylvie.”

Sylvie bit her lip, took a deep breath, and waited for the clamor to die down. “Really, this kind of thing shouldn't be that surprising considering how we were founded, nor how many of you are so deep in each others pockets and with other countries. Even in the Golden Guard, there's more spies and assassins from other countries than we can shake a stick at. Still, somehow we all make it work as a country. King Novan has a lot to do with that.”

“You are not wrong about that, Lady Goldenbough, but you still have yet to explain what is going on. So far, all you've given us is a few bits of honesty we usually try to avoid. It's not enough to remove your death sentence.” The King's voice was lazy, but his gaze was sharp on Sylvie.

She shifted slightly. “Very well, it goes like this. The King's grip on the throne was, at one point, incredibly weak because it depended on those assassins and spies to be kept in place. The King at the time was not satisfied with that, and worked at getting true power one spy and assassin at a time. Those he couldn't bind to him with blood-bindings he subverted until he was the true power and Vanihan was set. There was only one problem. Vanihan was in the middle of the plains. There were no barriers to the future when other countries would eventually just march right over top of Vanihan and leave it dying in the dust. The King turned to the cities of magic still standing at the time, the East and the West cities that also stood on the plains.”

“You're saying that they raised up the hills and mountains surrounding our country with magic?”

Sylvie chuckled. “Really, your Majesty, you already know this. It was when the barriers rose that things became complicated. The other countries wanted their power back, and couldn't get it. So they sent their own people in to grab power and become puppets to the other countries again. It has become quite the back an forth, but you and your family have managed to maintain your power to this day. The problem is that somebody decided to orchestrate a coup and put themselves on the throne five years ago. The only people that were supposed to survive in the Capital were those that had been handpicked, and those of the Golden Guard they knew they could control or get out of the way by sending them to the border war.”

“But they didn't plan on you breaking the curse? That's rather convenient.” King Novan's tone was dry.

“Actually, they did plan on the curse being broken. Just not by me. I was supposed to be the main sacrifice powering the curse. I believe that they expected me to die and leave a convenient corpse for them to blame everything on.”

Quinton snorted, breaking the tension in the room. “As if you ever did the expected.”

Sylvie grinned. “True enough. I'm alive right now, after all. However, my presence was a sticking point for precisely that reason. They couldn't depend upon me dying on the front lines like a good soldier because I was never a soldier. I'd been in the Golden Guard since I was sixteen, and I was a warrior as much as a mage. If I couldn't use magic, I could fight.”

“Which really shouldn't be. I can understand it with my son, we raised him that way, but you were a backwoods girl.” The King stated pointedly.

“I was Lord Hillyard's daughter, who first felt the stirrings of magic when I was four. That was the same year I first held a blade with our arms man's help. He called me a natural. The more the magic pushed me to figure it out, the more I had to use weapons to ease the pain and the pressure. I tried to figure things out from my fathers books, but I was ten before I found someone willing to teach an odd little girl with magic that shouldn't even exist in the Southern Lands because the natural magic there was drained to create the barriers around this country. I was never tested for magic, I never had the regular training of any of the other mages around. I did have the best arms master in the country, but for the rest of it I had to rely on my natural abilities and my intelligence to get me through.” Sylvie almost spat the sentences out.

Then, she stopped, and took a breath. “And you're very good at distractions, your Majesty. I'm hardly the only mage with a similar story. Just look at the Timeos order sometime. Look, the Dark magics were meant to completely destroy this country so that the survivors wouldn't have time to worry about who or what was on the throne as long as they had some sort of leadership. Two men decided that they needed the rule of the country. They decided that they needed the power and the contracts, and the ability to send to Golden Guard to wherever they wanted. The highly trained warriors and mages of the Golden Guard are a prized commodity out there beyond our borders. They wanted the power that would bring.”

“It wouldn't have lasted.” The King commented.

“They didn't plan on it lasting. They planned on basically taking the money and living however they wanted for the rest of their lives. That was the sum total long term plan. They didn't care how many they killed, or how many they framed.”

During her statements, Firkin had dropped Sylvie's arm and stepped off to the side. He, Quinton, and Harken were in place. The handsigns Sylvie had done earlier had made both Quinton and Harken aware of who to watch.

“Lady Goldenbough...”

Sylvie rode right over the King's comments. “The worst part of all is how much we trusted them. Most of the Golden Guard, and most of the court would stand next to them right now and say how I'm mistaken. By the Gods, I do wish I was wrong. But, Lord Healer Durand and Lord Hillyard, I'm not wrong, am I?”