Selida pressed her face into Dulcis's warm neck. The mare whickered and nudged her elbow.

"I know," Selida murmured. "Humans are eating all your oats." She fished around in her satchel and came up with a fat, stubby carrot, liberated from the pile of stew ingredients she'd blessed that morning.

Dulcis lipped up the treat, and crunched. "Shh," Selida whispered. "Ispen might get jealous." She glanced up, over the partition. She could see Kahldar's broad back, where he worked over his horse's coat in the adjoining stall.

Kahldar did not turn. "Ispen will remain on three quarters' rations like everyone else in Wyvernsvow." And then in a gentler voice: "You seem fatigued. Shall I return you to Lady Magnus's solar?"

Selida resisted the urge to rub her eyes. Three days had passed since Ser Kahldar's apology, and like two stiff-armed marionettes, they had gesticulated their way into a tentative routine.

Kahldar now came to her door at dawn. Together, they made their rounds: she blessing the families camped in the great hall, and he, collecting reports from guardsmen rotating through their duties. Then they paused in the kitchen, where her prayers bolstered the day's meals. After breakfast, she conducted services—sacraments in her chapel or Aluna's weekly mass—before he left her with Emmeline so he could take Lord Lydris to the practice yards. After dinner they walked the parapets. He counted watchfires on the ridge, straining to see them through the fog. She worried over the boats accumulating invisibly on the horizon.

None of the Fox's men had dared another assault over the wall, at least. Ser Aegison likewise offered no reply to the Fox's initial missive, not even to return their remaining prisoner. "He's saving 'im in case we need to trade 'im for goods," Kahldar's sargent confided.

They ended their evening walk at the cistern, where Selida turned her remaining prayers into clear water. Then Kahldar left her at the chapel door, extracting each night, her word that she would remain there until morning.

Alone at last in her bedroll, Selida teased Lydris's coin with divinations: Where, in the great heap of caves under Wyvernsvow, did you once lie? Where might I find your kin?

Aluna offered her back only silence.

On the third day, Kahldar had suggested that they visit their mounts. She wondered if he could see how the endless scrutiny wore at her composure.

"For convenience, I moved your steed to the stall beside Ispen."

Selida inhaled. Knight's chargers commanded spacious stalls, and their windows let in plenty of fresh air. Farmer families could not share their stables.

Dulcis greeted her with unflappable good cheer. Selida was afraid she would drape herself over her mount's back and weep. Instead, she set to currying.

***

"So this is where you are," came young Lord Lydris's clear voice. Beside him, Selida could hear the sluggish slither of Emmeline's dress on the straw floor.

Selida lifted her head from Dulcis's coat. Lydris already wore his padded gambison. He stopped outside her stall door, jumping from from foot to foot, practice sword in hand. Ispen, more sensitive to noise than Dulcis, snorted.

"Here my lord." Selida reached into her satchel and offered him the second carrot. "This one is for Ispen."

His face lit up and he leaned up against the adjoining stall door. "Ser Kahldar, is it time for practice yet?" He looked up at his mother. "Lady Selida can stay with you, can't she?"

Kahldar released Ispen's head and let the giant horse reach for the carrot with extended lips. "Once I am done here."

Lydris wriggled as Ispen's tongue licked his palm for more. "Will you show me the Leaping Ferret Strike? Or how about the Falcon's Pass?"

Selida watched Kahldar absorb this enthusiasm with the mute gravity of a sea sponge. "Given the current situation, Ser Aegison thinks you and the pages should put in a day or three of archery."

"Must we? Archery is so boring. What if you showed me after?"

"Perhaps, if you succeed in beating your previous record of four bull's-eyes." Kahldar patted Ispen and stepped out of the stall.

"Off you go," Emmeline said, leaning on Dulcis's stall door. "We shall return to the solar, and our embroidery."

"Oh, and Lady Cleric," Lydris said as he stepped around his mother and into the lee of his hero. "I've sent a letter to our allies, informing them of the gravity of our situation. Have you had any luck with the coin I lent you?"

It sat heavy in her inner pocket. Selida dipped him a curtsey. "I'm afraid it is merely a coin, though the church's historians will appreciate its role in our history."

"Oh."

"Perhaps the other objects housed nearby will prove more forthcoming," she heard herself say. "In my divinations, I saw a large, rune-covered pearl. Aluna's ancient clerics used them to store messages and communicate across great distances."

He sharpened. "Communicate to where?"

Selida spread her hands. "Scholars believe that in the time of our elven ancestors, pearls such as those could reach all the way across the sea."

Emmeline placed a hand on her son's shoulder. "Lydris, you will be late and Ser Kahldar will be held to account." She glanced at Selida. "Unless, Lady Cleric, you would enjoy proceeding to the bailey to watch the pages practice?"

"None of the other pages have their mother there," Lydris exclaimed, indignant.

Emmeline pursed her lips. "Perhaps another time."

Lydris bowed hastily to them both before he and his knight clattered out of the stable.

***

The stalls felt empty after Kahldar departed. Selida kissed Dulcis farewell and followed Emmeline through the courtyard and up three flights of stairs. When they arrived at her solar, Emmeline settled onto a padded bench. Beyond the large windows stretched the sea: moody, slate, and ever-changing. "Come, sit. You can tell me how the castle fares."

Selida remained standing. "I have never been well suited to embroidery and gossip."

Emmeline bit off a thread. "Perhaps you would have preferred we go watch the pages spar with their stalwart instructor." She smiled into the fabric. "He is a patient and exacting master. They love him dearly, though they would never say it to his face."

Selida had seen the way the young men shone when Kahldar spoke to them; the way they sought his opinion about their mounts, their gear, their stance. She dared not admit it. "Doesn't Ser Aegison wish to oversee your son's training personally?"

"Before all this started, he did. It shows him off to his best."

"Really."

Emmeline arranged her embroidery hoop in her lap and set a perfect stitch. Then she contemplated the bouquet of flowers forming in its center. "I know you do not like him much, but unquestioning loyalty to a liege of seven is a rare quality in a retainer. He demands more of Lydris than any other training partner, though Ser Kahldar has more patience."

"Dawnlanders." Selida sighed and stared out the window. Inbound fog obscured the horizon. "Do you never miss swordplay? What if we snuck off to practice, the way we used to?"

"And batter at each other with what, spindles? One of the best aspects of marriage was that I could finally let someone else worry about the bludgeoning and stabbing."
"As a traveling Cleric, I cannot afford to delegate away activities that may yet save my life."

Emmeline leveled her a look. "And yet you stir up thoughts of pearls in a seven year old child?"

Selida winced. "You say nobody is allowed to see the treasure, and I concede the point. But if there is some great power Lydris could call upon, locked in his very own castle, should he not know? At least of the possibility?"

"Pray do not distract him, or yourself. The situation is tenuous enough as it is."

Selida sighed. "As milady commands."

Emmeline started on another flower. "So, how have you and Ser Kahldar been getting along?"

Aluna save me. Selida began to recount the day.

***

On the fourth day of Selida's incarceration, she and Kahldar climbed the stairs to Lady Magnus's solar. They found nothing but silence. "But they were at breakfast," Selida said as she took in the rows of embroidery floss in their baskets.

Kahldar, even more accustomed to Emmeline's tranquil rituals, looked blank. "Perhaps we missed them."

They retraced their steps, but found no trace of either Lydris or Emmeline. They walked into the kitchens, the larder, and back through the great hall. Farmer and fishing families greeted them from their temporary living spaces against walls and corridors, but no bright blond head bobbed among them.

"Lord Magnus?" said one of the squires tending the horses. "He hasn't yet come down for practice; why?"

Selida felt the air around Kahldar congeal as he scanned the exterior walls. "Perhaps Ser Aegison is taking a turn at his education," she murmured as the page scampered off.

"Far more likely he would have returned the boy and his mother to us posthaste." Kahldar's voice was even, but in it Selida could hear the scenarios that tumbled through his imagination: some covert kidnapping? An accidental fall? A purposeful shove from some terrible height? He looked up at the towers. "We must search systematically. From top to bottom."

She hurried to catch up. "You're not going to involve Ser Aegison?"

"If the Fox sees our men in disarray on the walls, he will know his plan has succeeded."

Selida wanted to shake him. "The Fox wants the treasure, not a child of seven." Aluna, what would he even do with him?

The treasure. She saw the caves then, the gnarled grottoes and endless, black corridors. What time was it? The tide was already high. Ice flooded her stomach.

"Oh," she said. Kahldar pivoted abruptly on his heel.

Well Tidemother. I suppose this is one answer to my prayers. The thought was black, jagged, and brittle. Surely not.

They ran side by side back towards the larders.