I know who he’s speaking of. Laia’s sudden departure from our group stung. Part of me respects her lack of sentimentality. She had a mission. She did what she had to do.

Still, I wish she’d at least said goodbye.

“Little archer? She has better aim than you, you ass.” I punch Faris in the arm, and he winces. “And she’s braver. I didn’t see you delivering a baby in the middle of a siege. As I recall, you were trying not to faint. Dex, catch me up.”

Dex slows his stride to match my limp. “Grímarr attacked three more supply trains. Burned them down to the axel. His men were screaming the same thing they’ve shouted during every raid.”

“Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi. Have you found anyone to translate it?”

“It’s archaic Karkaun,” Dex says. “I’ll keep working on it. I do have good news: My uncle sent word that he’ll be here in a week. He brings a thousand men.”

“Thank the skies.” That will swell our numbers to a little more than ten thousand, and that’s with the Scholars fighting. It’s nothing against the hundreds of thousands of men Keris commands. But she’s the one who taught me that there are many ways to win a war. Not all of them rely on superior numbers.

“We’ll have to cut rations again,” Dex adds.

“Gens Lenida is sending us grain, potatoes, and apples from their reserves,” I say. “Dispatch a platoon of guards to meet it. That shipment will buy us time.”

“Time for what, Shrike?” Dex says. “What’s our play? The Paters will ask you the same question. Are you ready to answer it?”

Apparently not. “Anything else?”

“A request from the Scholar council. And—” He considers his words. “The Ankanese have sent an ambassador. No escort, no horse even. Just appeared at the gates this morning out of thin air. Said you’d be back by midday and that he’d see only you.”

My father visited Ankana long ago. They think we’re barbaric, Father told me upon his return. They are so far beyond us that I’m surprised they agreed to see me.

“Shall I have him wait until the Empress Regent can see him too?” Dex asks.

I shake my head. Livia has enough to deal with. “Send him to my quarters. Immediately.”

“Perhaps a physician first?” Dex’s brow furrows at my limp. “Lieutenant Silvius arrived from Navium while you were away. Rode with your uncle Jans.” Dex lingers a moment on the physician’s name, and I hide a smile. At least there’s still some joy left in this world.

“I heal quickly,” I say. “But give Silvius quarters in the castle. In Navium, he made do with limited supplies, as I recall. We need that kind of skill. And get me that translation. Look into Karkaun customs and rites—it felt more like a chant than a war cry.”

By the time the Ankanese ambassador knocks at my door, I’ve washed the road off and changed into my ceremonial armor. Most of my shallow wounds have healed, and the hole in my leg has stopped bleeding.

“Greetings, Blood Shrike.” The man is my height, with deep brown skin and curly gray hair. He speaks Serran with the barest trace of an accent. His slippered feet allow him to walk silently, but his blue tunic, heavily embroidered with silver animals and flowers, rustles as he bows.

“I am Ambassador Remi E’twa.” Despite the fact that he has no weapon, there’s power in the breadth of his shoulders and in his purposeful gait. He is a fighter.

“You have the look of your father,” he says as I close the door. “I met with him, long ago. He was a good man. Open to our ways. I taught him the words of parting. Emifal Firdaant.”

“What do they mean?” I ask.

“‘May death claim me first.’” At my expression, Remi smiles. “Your father was confused too. But then he spoke of his wife and daughters, and he understood. I felt great sorrow at his death.”

I gesture for the ambassador to join me in my sitting room. “Your people have long avoided dealings with the Empire. What has changed?”

The ambassador appears surprised at my bluntness, perhaps used to pleasantries.

“You have outlawed slavery, Blood Shrike,” he says. “A requirement of any dealings with our nation. If you can swear that it will remain so, I am here to open trade between Emperor Zacharias and Ankana, and negotiate an agreement. As a token of our goodwill, I have brought a dozen Ankanese sappers—”

We have army engineers, I nearly say, but bite my tongue. Among all of my men, I can likely count a half dozen sappers. Keris has the rest.

“And portable trebuchets,” he says. “Smaller and lighter than what you had at Antium, but just as powerful. You will need them, I believe, for the coming battles.”

His presumption rankles me, but considering I have few sappers and no trebuchets, I swallow my annoyance. “You see the future,” I say. “Like the Augurs.”

“Our gift is not stolen.” Remi is pointedly neutral. “It is earned after long years of study. We see impressions. The Augurs saw details.”

“When you look at me, what do you see?”

It is not the question I mean to ask. But it is what I have wanted to know from the moment Dex told me the ambassador was here.

“When I look at you now, I see Dil-Ewal,” he says. “She who heals. When I look at your future, I see—” He pauses and shrugs. “Something else.”

He transitions smoothly into the trade agreement, laying out what he wants in return for the sappers and trebuchets. I agree to sell him grain and livestock—skies knows where I will get them from—and tell him the crown will consider the sale of scims, which appears to satisfy him. After he is gone, a knock sounds at my door.

I open it to find my sister’s head bent at an awkward angle. Zacharias clutches a hank of her hair and pulls at it with happy vigor.

“What madness possessed you to leave your hair down?” I tickle Zak’s foot and he releases Livia and flops toward me with a “ba!”

Livia says he’s too young to be speaking. But I think he knows who loves him best. When I take him, he reaches for my braid, but only gives it a light pat before grabbing my face instead.

“Traitor child.” My sister smiles. Zacharias is as beautiful as she was as a baby, with soft brown curls and cheeks that want a pinch. His coloring is a mix of Livia’s and Marcus’s, a glowing golden-brown, and he watches me with the pale yellow eyes of the Farrar family.

“He missed you.” Livvy settles herself into the spot I vacated. “Refused to sleep properly without Auntie Shrike to give him a cuddle. But I told him you were off doing something very important.”

I glance at her ladies-in-waiting, Merina and Coralia Farrar. They’re Marcus’s cousins—and nothing like him. They love my sister and Zacharias with a fierce protectiveness, but they do not need to be party to matters of state. Livia dismisses them, and they take the Emperor from me, escorted by a sober-faced Captain Rallius and three other Masks.

After I tell Livia everything that happened in Marinn, she rises in agitation.

“We knew the Commandant would play dirty,” she says. “The jinn attacks were meant to bring Marinn to its knees just in time for her to demand a treaty.” My sister paces the room. “Sometimes I want to leave all of this. Take Zacharias and go far away, to some warm southern land, where no one will know us. Where he can have a normal life.”

“Your people need you,” I say. “And they need him. He is the child of a Plebeian and an Illustrian, brought into this world by a Scholar. He is a symbol of hope and unity, Empress Regent. A reminder of what the Empire could be.”

“Thank the skies you’ve finally come around.” Livia smiles. “A few months ago, you wanted to throttle me for setting the Scholars free.”

“But you did it anyway,” I say. “You’re brave. And wise. You just have to be patient too.”

By the time Livia and I enter the throne room, a wood-beamed dining hall with too many cobwebs, two dozen Paters have gathered. My uncle, Jans Aquillus, is also there, and nods when I enter. He will be one of the few Livia and I can count on to stand with us.

I offer a greeting, but step back, a hand on my scim, to allow Livia to speak. For the thousandth time, I wish for my mask. Its silver reminded me of who I was. What I was capable of doing. It reminded everyone else as well. Too often, the Paters forget.

“Wine, soldier,” Livia calls to the aux at the door. He disappears and Pater Cassius snorts.

He’s a tall, slope-shouldered fellow with a thick head of gray hair and parchment-pale skin. “He’ll be hard-pressed to find it,” Cassius says.

“A by-product of war, Cassius,” Livia says. “We’re not having a garden party.”

“No, we are not.” Pater Agrippa Mettias speaks up. He is clever, blunt, and an excellent fighter—a quintessential Northman. Though only in his late twenties, he’s successfully guided his Gens since the age of sixteen.