Helen awoke gently and slowly, lifted from sleep yer by yer as though hoisted by ropes out of darkness and into the sun. When she rolled onto her side, she nearly panicked. Firstly because of her body, the still-unfamiliar contours sending mixed signals. Then came the second disturbance as she opened her eyes, for this was no chamber in which she had ever rested her head. The bed was enormous, the sheets all made of the finest silks and linens, the room itself opening up onto a sprawling vista of Chrysopolis in pre-dawn.

  The final surprise was the man under the bedsheets with her. It was his presence, chest rising and falling as he slept, that reminded her of the night before. Long hours of talking, drinking, whispering, joking, and ughing, and at the end of those hours, the climax. If nothing else, Helen could not be accused of having failed in her mission. Abderus had been thoroughly, vigorously, exhaustively, seduced. And she had enjoyed it more than she had expected she would.

  “You are not an easy woman to wake, you know. Though how much of that was the alcohol and physical exhaustion I can’t say.”

  Shirrin was standing in the corner of the room, arms folded behind her back. She was wearing all bck, or at the very least dark brown, and judging by her posture Helen could only conclude that she had been there the entire time. She grabbed a handful of bedsheets and dragged them up to cover her chest.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “This may be our st chance to confer.”

  “I’m sorry for not meeting you again st night,” Helen said. “Things were too dour for Abderus after the news about the harbor, so he moved the affair into private.”

  “Unless I have made a great error in my research, he’s not married. This isn’t an affair.”

  Helen grimaced. “You know very well what I mean.” She bit her lower lip. There was something she had been wondering, but she was afraid to say it aloud, lest it rouse Shirrin’s anger. “The harbor… was that your doing?”

  “Not directly, but yes, I arranged it. I did not expect it to happen on Tertalia, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Chaos, for one. The worse the situation becomes, the more Peleus will be bmed, and the fewer will be willing to stand by him when the end comes. And when the end does come, the presence of the harbor would be… inconvenient.”

  Helen knew that there was more to be said, but to ask would mean that she could not cim ignorance when the executioner’s axe fell. Better to leave it be. Each new piece of information which she learned turned Shirrin’s revenge into a rger, more horrible thing. It was too te for her to turn back now. As though to seal the binding oath, Helen gently reminded herself of her new form with one hand.

  “Regardless,” Shirrin continued, “You have made good progress in your part of the pn. That makes one of us.”

  Helen rushed out of bed, forgetting her modesty in a flurry of panic. “You have already failed? What happened? What have you done?”

  “My attempted seduction of Empress Athan went poorly. It was a difficult thing from the very beginning, and I did the best I could do. I do not know if there was any course by which it may have been possible, but regardless, I did not take it.”

  “I pced my trust in you,” said Helen. “I am pcing my trust in you, even now. And you come here to tell me that you have failed?”

  “I have failed in this single task,” said Shirrin, eyes downcast. “The pn will persist. And you still have a crucial part to py in it.”

  “I have hardly begun to py my part, and already the pn has begun to colpse.” Helen turned away, raking her hands again and again through her hair. “Why should I even bother building this new life for myself, if at any time I could learn that the reason for it has come to pieces, thanks to your incompetence.”

  “Do not call me incompetent!” Shirrin hissed.

  Abderus stirred. Both women turned around at once, and the room fell into a deathly silence. After a moment, he settled onto his back and once more sank into a deep sleep.

  “Seducing Athan in Eteocles’s form was the easiest way to accomplish my desired ends, Helen, but it was not the only one. The same applies for you, even; Abderus is not the only man who might start an uprising against Peleus, merely the most likely. Every part of my scheme has fallback positions. But I can only touch those pieces on the board that are close enough for my hands to take them, hence the need for your help.”

  \Shirrin approached Helen slowly, pcing her hands on either of Helen’s bare shoulders.

  “Why should I follow a ringmaster who I cannot trust to succeed?” said Helen.

  Shirrin’s expression darkened. Helen began to wonder if she had any answer at all, or if this was the end. A moment ter she realized that there was little alternative: without Shirrin, who was Helen? Nobody at all. Perhaps that was Shirrin’s pn.

  “If you cannot follow me because of my capability, then follow me out of self-interest. I have given you a body that is the envy of all the world, and a path to wealth and power that will st you the rest of your life. Even were I to fail—and I do not believe I am close to running out of schemes yet—you could simply pretend to have never known me and go on with your life. But if I succeed, if the opening is made, if the hounds bay for war and it is your words that determine whether Abderus follows… Then perhaps you will complete your part out of gratitude for all I have given you.”

  Helen was frozen, torn between the sucking pull of common sense on one side and the warmth of ambition on the other. She looked back, over her shoulder, at the sleeping man, and flushed slightly as she remembered the night previous. Then she took Shirrin by the wrists and steadily, gently, took Shirrin’s hands off of herself.

  “Fine. I’ll follow that logic right to the edge of hell.”

  “That’s the kind of thing I like to hear,” Shirrin said with a wry smirk. “Now, let’s talk strategy. It’s obvious that he likes you at least a little bit. Do you believe you can get him to take you home? You’ll need to be there with him if this is to work.”

  Helen shrugged. She moved slowly across the room, searching the floor for her discarded dress from the prior evening. “I know politics, not people. How am I supposed to know that?”

  Shirrin rolled her eyes, and for just a moment her face was a grimace of frustration. “Did he act lewdly around you? As though your body were the main thing he wished for? Or was it that he genuinely enjoyed your company? Eros or philia, in other words.”

  Helen squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated. “We ughed quite a bit. He told stories and I listened, wishing that I had any stories to tell. We were both quite drunk at the time, I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, that’s good. Well, not drink, drink is neither here nor there, but ughter is good. What of compliments? Did he compliment you?”

  Helen paused a moment, midway through wrapping her dress about herself, to respond to the question with a nod.

  “And when he complimented you, was it merely to praise your beauty? Don’t mistake me, he’ll have praised your beauty quite a bit no matter what, but if it was the only thing he praised then we find ourselves in a bad position. Did he ever imply that you were somehow different from other women, not as shallow or vain, more fulfilling, more real?”

  “Once or twice,” said Helen.

  “That’s good, that’s very good. Saying you aren’t like other women means he has already begun to see you as a human being.”

  Helen did not have time nor will to interrogate this further. “I suppose that is a necessary part of the process,” she said. “Any other signs?”

  Shirrin sucked in a breath through her teeth, then expelled it in a theatrical sigh. “Yes, but I doubt you’ll like the question.”

  “All that you have done to me, and you balk at a question?”

  “Very well then. When you were finished with… the act… what did he do next?”

  It was several long moments before Helen could recall precisely what had happened. It was the part of the night of which her memory was the foggiest, being as she was not only drunk and exhausted, but also still in the aftermath of several events which burned much more brightly in her memory.

  “He got up… there’s a pitcher of orange water by the side table.” She gestured to it; it was still half-full. “I think he must have been thirsty, or perhaps he just needed an excuse to stand. Then when he was done with that, he fell back into bed… We didn’t exactly talk or anything simir, but I did… we embraced, for a while. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “A very good thing,” Shirrin said, nodding. “Based on what you have described, I have no choice but to conclude that he is somewhat infatuated with you. Congratutions, Helen of Iathines, you have succeeded where even the Witch-Queen of Trabakond could not.”

  There was a touch of bitterness in Shirrin’s tone, but Helen assumed that this was bitterness at her own failure, rather than envy.

  “What next, then?”

  Shirrin raised an eyebrow, and seemed about ready to make a biting comment when she reconsidered. “Abderus leaves tomorrow morning, and he will spend most of today busy with matters of governance. Above all else, you must ensure that when he does leave, he takes you with him.”

  “So that I may be present at the proper moment, when you have created the opening for a rebellion against Emperor Peleus, an opening of which I will press Abderus into taking advantage.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  Neither one moved from where they were standing. Helen should have said goodbye, returned to bed, or woken Abderus and begun her work. But the future was a yawning chasm, and to take even one step would mean falling into it. It soon became apparent that Shirrin recognized this as well.

  “Helen… If I may call you that?”

  Helen nodded.

  “Helen, I know well your character. Even when you were a sve, you were more than you knew yourself capable of, and there were a half-dozen times when it was your wit and scrupulosity alone which prevented disaster. I do not say this to downpy what it is that you are about to do: I have an entire network of spies, whereas you will have nothing but your own intelligence, Abderus’s favor, and whatever you can build from those two things. If you succeed in tipping Abderus into war, then all the rest of the pn will fall into pce, and the Pale Prince shall be avenged; if you cannot, then there is no hope for victory. But I have had twelve years to concoct my plots, and in all that time, I could think of nobody who is more suited for this task than you. You have lived your entire life with the world set against you, and the life of a eunuch sve is far deadlier than that of a princess. It may be that this is the st time we shall ever speak, and if it is, I must choose carefully the st thing I ever say to you.”

  Shirrin took two steps forward, and before Helen could even fully comprehend it she was pulled into a tight embrace, Shirrin’s head tucked neatly against her shoulder. For several moments Helen stood frozen, shocked by the outburst of emotion. But slowly, she began to piece together the facts of the situation, and closed her arms around Shirrin’s skinny back.

  “I am gd to have met you,” Shirrin whispered. “You will do great things. Now go, go and make much out of the gifts that I have given you.”

  When Shirrin broke the embrace, and for several seconds longer gazed up and down Helen’s form, Helen understood. It was an unfamiliar face into which she gazed; but then, it was an unfamiliar face she was looking out of, and yet surely if she had anyone in the world who had cared for her then that person would have been able to recognize something. And indeed, when she looked into Shirrin’s face, she did recognize the small things, the quirks in the curvature of the mouth, the way her eyes drifted carefully between objects of focus.

  Shirrin nodded sharply, and then turned around, took three steps towards the door, and flickered out of existence. For a moment there was a dark shape in the room, fpping and awkward, and then that shape too was gone, and it was as though Shirrin had never been in the chamber at all. Helen remained there, frozen, waiting expectantly for her to return even though she knew it was not to be.

  Helen’s dedication to the cause had been redoubled now that she knew the truth of Shirrin’s origin; she would not allow herself to disappoint the Witch-Queen, who had been her friend for so short a time and yet to so great an impact. She returned to the edge of the bed with one leg lying on the mattress and the other thrown casually over the edge, and looked down at the Exarch of Philgeonia, who through all that had transpired had remained sleeping peacefully.

  It was strange, looking at him. He was a man of immense power, second in the Empire only to Peleus and a few key officials, and yet when he was asleep in bed he seemed so very mortal. Fondly, Helen reached out and rubbed at his shoulder, feeling the dense and curly hair along his back.

  A few moments ter, Abderus stirred, snorted, rolled over, and eventually sat upright. “Good morning, princess. Already dressed?”

  “I awoke before you did,” Helen said. “And I felt like getting dressed. I do not mean it to slight you, of course.”

  “Of course not,” said Abderus. He rubbed the sand from his eyes and stretched his shoulders, before turning his attention back to Helen. This time, he frowned, apparently noticing someone. “You look like you’re in a dark mood,” he said. “Something the matter?”

  Helen had allowed her emotions, her fear of the trials ahead and of what she was to do to Abderus, color her expression. She, unlike Shirrin, was no good at acting. “Yes, I suppose something is the matter,” she said.

  “What is it? Surely I can fix it.”

  “Oh, but you cannot,” Helen said. She really did have his favor. Now to make use of it. “What is your business today?”

  “I consort with the Emperor. Informing him of news from the west, reaffirming my loyalty to him, asking for my exarchate’s share of the imperial tax revenue. Why?”

  “Because my business for the day is to go and live in the household of a highly-ranked sve, hoping that news will come that one of my retives is ready to lead a rebellion against Sarrania. And when you return to Eunon, I shall still be stuck here in the same sorry state.”

  Abderus’s expression grew more sad with every word. “Oh, my dear, how I had almost forgotten! A princess without a realm, how pathetic.”

  “You do not need to rub it in,” Helen snapped.

  “My apologies. Indeed, there is little I can do…” Abderus paused. Helen’s heart nearly stopped and her breath caught in her throat. Was it so easy?

  “There is one thing I can do,” Abderus said.

  “What is that?” Helen fluttered her shes as prettily as she could.

  Abderus leaned in close. “I could take you with me when I go. I could give you a realm.”

  Helen had to, at all costs, avoid looking as though she had expected this or wished for it to occur. The best thing she could think to do was grab Abderus, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him into a kiss so long and so intense that when it ended she could scarcely breathe.

  “You would not do such a thing! I have no nds, no wealth, no armies! Nothing at all but my title!”

  Abderus chuckled. “Am I not the same? An Exarch serves for life, yes, but he still serves only at the Emperor’s will. Without Peleus, I own nothing but a few square miles of wheat.”

  “And you would share that few square miles with me?”

  “Based on the evening I had? I think I would.”

  Helen could not stop from grinning. But she did not cry tears of joy, for her mind was occupied with other things. Even as he spoke words of love, Abderus had invited a viper into his home.

  SaffronDragon