"May the serpents of the earth raise us up—"

Selida was avoiding him. Kahldar stood just inside the chapel. He watched her face as she led knights, scullery maids, and fishermen through the songs and dances of Aluna's mass.

"—as the snakes of the sky carry our hopes—"

It was not his imagination. She kept her eyes fixed on the front half of the room. In the first row, Lady Magnus and Lydris clasped hands with the two little farmer girls from the road. Their mother beamed at them from behind.

"—when the Great Wyrm floats our souls home—"

Two days had passed since Lydris's rescue. On the first, Kahldar had offered to return Selida to her chapel and guard her door against Ser Aegison's suspicions. To his surprise, she averted her eyes and insisted she stay close to Lydris's sickbed.

The next afternoon, when Lydris's usual enthusiasm returned and Lady Magnus could keep him confined no longer, Selida accompanied them to breakfast but rejected his invitation to view swordplay practice. She trailed Emmeline back into the castle like a living extension of the lady's long black veil.

In the meantime, the Fox sent no more sorties. Instead, the campfires along the peninsula proliferated. So did the dots on the ocean's horizon. Ser Aegison ran the defenders through twice-daily drills, but Kahldar knew he dared not push them too far. Nobody knew when the Fox would finally make his move. The air grew heavy as both the castle and the skies waited for a coming storm.

Kahldar knew such moods inevitably led some men to carelessness and others to zeal. After he and Ser Aegison reported two disciplinary incidents to Lady Magnus at dinner, she announced an impromptu prayer service. "Tis exactly what we need to ease our spirits. Selida?"

Selida did not look up. "Of course, milady."

Kahldar had not expected to see the squire with the broken nose among the crowd in the chapel, nor the fellow who had been so impressed by the breakfast scones. Even more people stood in the hallway outside. Those who knew the responses chanted them, and those who did not looked regretful.

He touched the W embossed on a disk of his armor. Aluna, like many minor pagan goddesses, was a mere facet of Era, his church taught. It was a matter of time before all sermons became the masses of the Church of the Heavens.

But Era did not count in her portfolio either snakes or scones.

Selida ended the mass and invited any who wished for confession to remain. Her serene expression offered him no answers. Still, he weighed his words, and waited.

***

Kahldar was still standing by the little blue doorway when the last petitioner departed. He saw Selida's shoulders tense in silent dismissal. He ignored it. She kept her back to him as she straightened chairs and neatened the simple altarpiece.

Honesty is worth the order it brings. His heart accelerated. He cleared his throat.

"The people of the keep are grateful for your miracles," he offered.

She slowed her neatening, but did not respond.

"As am I. For the water. For the healing."

She walked to the altar, and knelt.

He took a deep breath. "Young Lydris would have died in the caves without your miracles. Thank you for accompanying me."

This earned him a sliver of her cheek.

When she said nothing he pressed on: "I was incorrect in assuming I could have found him, or saved him, on my own."

"Is that an apology?" Her voice was unreadable, but he felt it like a fresh breeze on his skin.

"It is."

She rose, and lit a censer of incense on the altar. "It is the dark of the moon tonight. I have one more ritual to complete before I retire to Emmeline's room for the evening. You will not want to see it."

"Why is that?"

"It is a ritual of purification. A bathing ritual."

"Ah."

"It's supposed to be done in the ocean, but that seems unwise in this weather."

"Indeed." He studied the painted walls for a moment. "I would stay, if you will have me."

Seconds passed. "You could ask Emmeline to come, if you prefer."

"I will face the wall, so that both of our modesties are preserved."

"Why?"

He went to close the door, and then placed a chair in front of it, facing away from the room. "Because I suspect I have offended you in some way." He took a breath. "If that is so, I would like to understand why, so that I may make amends."

Her voice sounded strained. "You have not offended me."

"Then why have you been avoiding me?"

He heard her moving chairs around. "Have I been?"

"Yes."

Her next answer was too rushed to be, he thought, perfectly truthful. "I thought you might enjoy a respite from my company."

"Quite the contrary. I have missed it."

"Truly."

"Truly. Before this siege, I do not think I understood the role you play in the fabric of your people's lives. Now that I do, I admire it."

"Would that all Dawnlanders be so quick to open-mindedness."

"It has been years, I know. I regret my long reluctance to see your people as they are. I suspect clearsightedness complicates our determination to convert you to our ways." When she was silent again, he added, "Pray do not stab me in the back in a fit of annoyance."

"Do... you think I would?"

"No."

Her voice was dry. "You say that with the utmost faith. I am amazed."

"I do not think you would betray us. You may be angry with Ser Aegison, but you continue to refill the cisterns. You feed the hungry." He contemplated the W on his gauntlet. "You understand duty, and uphold yours most faithfully."

He heard metal chime on stone, as if she placed a large bowl in the center of the room. Then followed the sound of water, perhaps from an ewer. Kahldar fixed his eyes even more firmly on the wall beside the door.

"Perhaps," she conceded. "But my duties are to Aluna, not some worldly authority."

"A worldly authority simplifies many things. Who to honor. When to kill, and what distinguishes warfare from murder." He looked down at his hands. "Why one should not raise a blade against one's own family, even to reclaim one's own birthright."

The sound of water stopped for a moment. "I knew that you belong to an old Dawnlander family," she said. "But I had assumed you were a second or third son."

"I was my father's heir, but my parents died in a northern raid when I was twelve."

"I am sorry."

He did not bother to shrug. She had lost her mother even younger, he knew. "King Harald awarded my father's lands to my uncle, so they will now pass instead to his eldest."

"Is there anything you could have done about it?"

"Just as the sea and its plenty shape the Tidelands, mountain winters and the trolls they drive against our borders shape the Dawnlands. I could not have held those lands when I was a boy."

"But now?"

"My uncle is an honorable man, in his way. The people trust him, and he holds the creatures at bay. Merchants cross our lands and furnish the people with all they need. When I reached my majority, King Harald called me to his court, and honored me with this perspective. So instead of contesting the appointment, I came to the coast instead."

"And in so doing," she finished thoughtfully, "became a man who follows."

"You say that so scornfully. Must all souls yearn to lead? There are songs which can only be sung by a choir in harmony. Unwavering loyalty is much easier on the spirit than the restless gnawing of ambition."

"Does the lack of freedom not grate on you? Ser Aegison is a narrow man."

"He is dedicated to Lady Magnus and to the young Lord," Kahldar said. "He makes mistakes, but his intent is pure. There is no dishonor in following one such as himself."

She was silent for a moment. "Does young Lydris know that you fight for him to retain a birthright that you yourself could not?"

"That is not why I do it." He exhaled. "Though I suppose the thought may occur to him, someday."

"And what if Ser Aegison had asked you to torture his prisoners? Could you have done it?"

"I would have. But a Dawnland commander ought not order a sworn knight to dirty his hands on his superior's behalf unless he has no other option. Ser Aegison knows my opinion on torture. It would have been dishonorable of him to ask it of me."

"He knows your opinion on torture?"

"As he knows my thoughts on parlay." Kahldar opened his hand. "It is my duty to speak my mind when I believe him to be in the wrong. Just... not before the eyes and ears of the Tide and Her people."

"Ah. I had wondered." After a long moment, the pouring sound resumed. When she continued, he could hear the smile that crept into her voice. It gave him hope. "You have a poetic turn of phrase, when nobody else is listening."

"An indulgence."

"You enjoy the troubadours?"

"And Welded poetry. What about you?"

"I resent the Welded teaching that only married individuals have the wisdom to practice divine counsel."

He let this pass. "And troubadours?"

He heard the clatter of rocks on the wooden floor, as if she arranged a spiral of smooth stones around the basin. Around them, the keep had quieted, and he could hear the sigh of fabric on skin. Kahldar closed his eyes. He would not imagine her robed only in the warmth of the candles. He would not imagine her breasts, creamy and soft, nor their rosy tips hardening in the cool air, as they did under her stole when she danced in the surf. He heard her garments slither to the floor.

"I suppose it is because I find their tales of courtly love... aggravating."

Kahldar took a deep breath. Here it was. "I am... sorry to hear that. I would very much like to admire you from afar. Since you did say that you would abhor a more permanent, traditional connection."

He waited for three whole breaths.