he sun is bright and warm on her back, boosting Antiope’s energy without need of magic. The heat is nice, welcome even, as the light falls across her striped back. It passes through the glassless windows almost lazily, almost leisurely, and spreads across the far wall like a spotlight. She pictures Orestes’ great lion, Ariel.

The way he had sprawled upon the floor like pooling light.

Antiope presses down the hallway with sure steps, a heartbeat rhythm against the tiled floors, echoing almost longingly through the open archways. Everything here is warm, warm, warm, all the colors and the smells and the sounds. All heat and passion and aching. She can feel it all around her. The shadows are sharp and solid, not as encompassing and soft as in Denocte.

The night court Sovereign pauses outside the door that a guard had kindly told her belonged to Aghavni, wondering if the unicorn was in. The last she had seen of the verdant-eyed woman had been in the maze, in the fall, under the cover of the witching hour.

She thinks of the way her ivory hair had fallen from the pestilence mask after Aghavni had lifted it from her head.

She thinks of their walk through the tight rows of stalks, in the shadowed gloom.

Now Aghavni has stolen herself a court away, to a place of sun and sand, and bears the title Emissary. A funny thing, how their roles have both changed since the last time they had stood together. Antiope, eyes sapphire sharp and white practically gold in the light, finally raises her voice to be heard through the heavy wooden door, “Aghavni.”

"Speaking"

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The day has only just begun and already I am seething.

"Nestor," I cry, snatching a slim glass vase from the air before it could shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces on my tiles. "I have allowed you to stay but if you continue to be a menace—" the doors of my closet swing open and piles of clothing fly out until there is a vase-sized hole in the clutter and a wardrobe-sized mess on the floor. "—I will swap your mice for peasant's bread and banish you to the owlery."

The white falcon pivots towards my bedpost and throws me a hateful glare. I meet it steadfastly, before pushing the vase into the closet, sweeping what remained of my breakfast—a plate of honey cake, peeled mandarins, tea cold in its cup—onto a tray, and jerking a white string that ran all the way from my tower room to the kitchens far below.

A maid will arrive within the minute; already I can see the flicker of despair on her face when she comes to find my room in a state of upheaval, as it was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.

But I am too angry to reflect on my shame.

The noble families express their discontent for the King's promotion of Lady Aghavni (nee Sol VI) to the title of Emissary....

I take three steadying breaths and when that only angers me more I reach for the paper on my desk, written in bracingly formal Sahvahn, and read the lines over again:

... they fear the repercussions of a Hajakha in high office, referring to the reign of King Zolin I (or the 'Mad King', in some circles) as evidence enough for concern.

... I urge that the nobility's protests not go unheard. There is merit in what they say—too much merit. Lord Hajakha himself was a prominent loyalist, and his dealings with King Raum, which my sources suggest were far from the upright sort, cannot be forgotten...

What infuriates me most is that nothing in the article is inherently wrong. They are not my doing, but they are my family's, and to the Court—and to the world—we are one and the same. I will never stop paying for Hajakhan crimes.

I am about to throw the paper into the fireplace—as burned into my brain as the words are, I'll hardly need it for future reference—when there is a voice at my door.

"Aghavni." The maid. A stab of guilt works its way into my chest like a traveling thorn as I glance at the clothes on the floor, the unmade bed, the half-bitten breakfast, the white falcon sulking in a dusty corner.

"A moment!" My tongue curls around its impending apology as I stride quickly to my door, and ease it open. Just enough for my face to peer guiltily into the hallway. "You might have to ready yourself for—"

But it is not the maid.

My mouth falls open; inexplicably I think of Kite, my father's messenger, and how much he would laugh at this scene: At my door, a queen; me, scarcely bathed; my room, in shambles. It is so preposterous that I stifle the urge to laugh.

"... Your Majesty," I say, to eyes of luminous blue. "You have caught me at such an unfortunate moment that it makes me suspect you have planned this."