Selida did not sleep. She lay on the floor at the foot of Lydris's bed, knees curled to the gaping hole in her chest. Snippets of their conversation tumbled over her like hammers on a too-tight dulcimer.

Every now and then, she schooled her thoughts towards guard rotations and prayers, only to have them scatter like foam spray. All she could see behind her closed eyelids was Kahldar's profile; all she could hear was his voice. She relived, on repeat, their conversation: their wounds, their scars, her fine words of dismissal. She breathed silently through her open mouth so she would not wake the sleeping child by mouthing what she might have said instead, and what dangerous roads such words might have illuminated. When morning at last came, the world looked jumbled and wrong, a nightmare of a nightmare.

Emmeline arrived to prepare Lydris for the day. Selida dragged so badly that Emmeline, herself distracted, finally lowered the boy's hairbrush. "Are you unwell?"

The thought of seeing Ser Kahldar at breakfast, moving with reassuring steadiness among his men, made her eyes burn.

"It is the weather," Selida lied. The light through the window was weak, gray, and sluggish. "I wish this storm would break."

"It feels like coldfire air," Emmeline concurred, releasing Lydris from the bench. "We should check the cistern in case any of the thatching catches fire."

***

Selida need not have worried. The great hall bustled with strained farmers and fishermen, but was conspicuously empty of knights. "Where is Ser Kahldar?" she asked as she passed a dish of eggs and onions to Emmeline. "For that matter, where are half the guardsmen?"

"Out and about, I suppose."

Something in her tone made Selida turn her head.

"There are sappers under the castle!" Lydris blurted.

His mother frowned. "Hush. Where did you hear that?"

Lydris lowered his voice. "From the stableboys. I went while you and Lady Selida were in the kitchens. They say it's why all the guardsmen are on the wall." The boy smashed his eggs into a flat layer with the back of his spoon. "Do you suppose they'll come up under the great hall, Lady Selida?"

Emmeline removed his spoon, and laid it beside his plate. "Nonsense. There are miles of cave under the castle, and good hard rock in abundance. Stop playing with your food; we must wait for Lady Selida to say grace before we can begin."

Selida found her voice at last. "Sappers?" she asked. "The Fox has sappers?"

Emmeline made a shushing gesture with her hand. "I too was surprised to hear it. Ser Aegison believes that they have grown desperate. Their current tactics have no hope of breaching the battlements before the King's reinforcements arrive." She narrowed her eyes at Selida, and then her son. "Ser Aegison and his forces are attending to the matter. He was very clear he did not want talk of their engagement to panic your people. We must keep this to ourselves, understood?" She waited for Lydris's chastised nod, and then looked out over the uneasy crowds and raised her voice to carry. "Lady Cleric, Would you say the prayer, please?"

***

In the end, as no enemy archers had been sighted since dawn, Emmeline left Lydris with Old Meg and accompanied Selida to the cistern herself. By the time they reached the roof of the keep, the gray clouds were so low that they swallowed the tops of the flags.

"Pray do not walk so fast," Emmeline said. "It's a rare treat to be outside. Do you not wish to savor the fresh breeze off the sea?"

Selida pressed against the parapet, scanning for signs of the sappers. She saw them only as they passed before the road leading away from the peninsula: a flurry of men, and horses, and mining equipment, about a mile out. They clustered in a field surrounded by a copse of trees.

"It's the first clear land before the castle," Emmeline said, when she saw Selida craning her neck for a clearer view. "No doubt why they started their encampment there."

"Are Ser Aegison and his men planning to ride out to meet them?"

Emmeline smiled, but her warning glance encompassed the guardsmen on the walls beside them. "Lady Cleric," she said in a low voice, "Ser Aegison would say that is hardly your concern."

Selida reluctantly lowered her voice to match. "That is a typical Dawnlander response to sappers, is it not?"

"Allowing your enemy to undermine your defenses is generally considered to be bad tactics."

"You must tell them not to go. The Fox is a Tidelander. Our people have no idea how to sap a castle like this. He's as like to bury himself alive as he is to make any progress."

"There you go again, with that 'our people.'" Emmeline shook her head. "If Ser Aegison thinks it best to ensure that the Fox does not destroy my husband's keep, I will hardly gainsay him on the matter."

"You don't understand," Selida snapped, before she remembered to modulate her voice. She tried again: "Apologies, milady. It is just that I am sure this is a diversion. As his rains of arrows are. It is a pattern with the Fox."

Emmeline took her shoulders and leaned back to study her. "Do you really know our foe so well that you can predict his moves? His thinking? I beg you Selida, do not make such pronouncements."

Selida wanted to grab Emmeline's shoulders in turn—and shake her. "With all due respect, milady, do you think your father or brothers would know how to sap a castle like this?"

"It hardly matters if the men out there seem determined to." Emmeline tugged her back towards the stairs. "Shall we?"

Selida ungrit her teeth and held her ground. "Please, milady," she said. "Imagine you stand beside your father, as he plots an assault against a fortified point. Your family had excellent cavalry." She pointed out at the attackers. "What would Prince Skyfawn have done, if he knew that this castle's defenders were going to assault his camp in the middle of that field?"

Emmeline sighed, but she laid a hand on the battlement and stared out at the sappers' tents and equipment. "Hide in the woods," she murmured eventually. "And when the counterattack came, sweep in from the west."

"Tell that to Ser Aegison," Selida said. "I beg you. If he bears you—or his men—any love at all, he must listen."

***

Selida was pacing outside the guardhouse office when Emmeline emerged. "He heard me out, but did not seem particularly deterred," she murmured.

Selida could not tell if Emmeline felt disappointed or reassured; her charge honestly seemed not to know. She took Selida's arm in hers and pointed her towards the inner keep. "At any rate, he believes they have the situation well in hand."

"Perhaps I should talk to him."

"I do not think he wishes to speak with you right now, nor would your words aid the situation." Emmeline started her long glide across the bailey. "Come. Some time with our embroidery will calm your restive spirit."

At that moment, Selida spotted Kahldar emerging from the stables with half a dozen other men. Her heart jumped, and then fell when she saw they were all dressed for open combat. She disentangled her arm from Emmeline's, picked her split skirts off the floor, and walked as quickly as she could in his direction.

"Ser Kahldar," she called, as soon as she thought it would not come out an alarming shout. "A word with you, if I may."

He glanced up, saw her, and paused. A flick of his hand dismissed the others to a slight distance. For a moment, his face lightened, and then shuttered. It hurt him to look at her; regret opened a dangerous void behind her feet. "Lady Cleric. Apologies; I am in the midst of a defensive operation."

She tried very hard to look humble. "Are you riding out to rout the sappers?"

"I am afraid I cannot discuss that with you."

She stared up at him. Forget last night; believe me now. "I am certain that the Fox does not know how to sap a castle. It is not in the tradition of the Tidelands to dig through caves like a badger in order to undermine fortifications. He is as like to collapse a tunnel on himself as he is to collapse your curtain wall."

He held up a hand to ease her concerns, but she talked through him.

"What Tidelanders do excel at is ambush from cover. The sappers' camp is shielded on three sides by forest. Do you ride there now? I am certain that if you do, you will be riding into a trap. Please send at least some part of your force into the copse to the west of your target, so you will not be flanked unawares."

She wished he were not so good at expressionlessness. "What has convinced you of this?"

"My father was a Tidelander general. It is what he would have done."

Kahldar's lips parted, but before he could speak, Selida heard Ser Aegison's voice bark from the guardhouse door: "Ser Kahldar. Attend me."

Kahldar stepped away from her. He inclined his head: a dismissal. "Lady Cleric."

Ser Aegison was not so polite. Though Emmeline gestured at him, he closed the distance between them, face thunderous. "Slither back to your chapel, cleric," he ordered. "Speak no more of false tactics to your betters."

Selida felt her jaw set. "Risk your own life if you must, but do not risk your Lord's defenders."

She thought he increased his stride so that he might backhand her with his mailed fist. She wondered if she could turn the gravel at his feet to mud as he swung. If he was incapacitated—if the keep needed another person to marshall its forces—

"Knight Commander," Kahldar said quietly, "there is a matter in the stables that requires your attention."

Ser Aegison's head turned.

"An urgent matter," Kahldar added. He glanced meaningfully at the farmers who watched them from all sides.

Ser Aegison's florid face reddened further, but he managed to control himself and correct his trajectory.

Kahldar turned back to her. "My lady." Behind his gentle tone, his eyes flickered with emotions she could not read. "If our paths are indeed to diverge, then we must start as we mean to go on."

All her words died in her throat.

He bowed. She watched him disappear into the stables.