Honestly, all the nobles start blending together after a while. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to learn their faces and names when I’m not quite so distracted, but for now, I just nod politely as they move past in an endless line. Eventually, however, a familiar face steps up in front of our table.
“Hello, Lord Wadestaff,” Ana says with a smile. “You’re looking as dapper as ever.”
Corrin sweeps into a low bow. His smart cerulean vest and jacket still stand out among the other lords’ clothes, but now they’re clearly made from the best material by the finest tailors.
“Congratulations, Your Majesties,” he says.
“Thank you. And how are things in Hallowbane?” Ana asks.
I think she enjoyed it more than Corrin when she made the former king of gambling dens and brothels not just lord of the city but of a good chunk of Godom as well. There was a catch, of course. He had to cease his criminal activities and start putting himself on the right side of the law—turning his shady establishments into something more legitimate.
Personally, I wasn’t sure it was wise to trust the crook to uphold his side of that deal, but fortunately, I had a woman on the inside to keep an eye on him.
Damia sweeps over to stand by Corrin’s side, looking like a black cat next to his peacock-colored outfit.
“Is he behaving himself?” she asks, tilting her head toward Corrin. Despite her words, she can’t quite hide the satisfaction that shines in her eyes when she looks at him. She reminds me of Barb when she’s snared a particularly pleasing bit of dinner.
“I was just about to tell them about how things are going in the city, which is very well, in fact,” Corrin says. “We’re nearly done rebuilding the southeast quarter, and then we’ll move on to the mess the Temple left in the suburbs.”
“A few anointers who avoided capture in Agathyre crawled back there to hide,” Damia says, smiling. “But don’t worry, I rooted them out and marched them to Qimorna last week.”
“Baron Hornifold? Baroness? Is that you?” A man I think introduced himself as Lord Qualis about half an hour ago squints at Corrin and Damia, a confused look on his face.
“Lord Qualis!” Corrin beckons him over, grinning.
“I hardly recognized you,” the Trovian lord says, moving forward to shake Corrin’s hand and offer us respectful bows in turn.
“That’ll be the lack of glamour,” Corrin says, airily gesturing to his face. When he sees Qualis look even more confused, he brushes the comment aside. “It’s a long story. Are Lady Viola and Lady Petunis here?”
Damia rolls her eyes fondly and waves us goodbye, following Corrin, who’s just marched Qualis over to some ladies by the drinks fountain.
“It seems like the pair of them are adapting quite well,”Ana says, amused.
“We’ll see,”I reply. I imagine it will be a bit of an adjustment to Corrin, having to make it as a legitimate businessman, and to Damia having to live in Trova. She told me a few weeks after the battle that I’d always be her captain, so it made sense for her to stay in Trova if I was too. But it was obvious even then I wasn’t the main reason for her decision.
I’m happy for her, if a little baffled by the pairing. At least she’s keeping herself busy with her favorite hobby—stamping out religious extremism. And there’s plenty of that to be done while we’re still dealing with the aftermath of the Temple.
Speaking of which…
My eyes go to a tall, quiet figure at the corner of the hall.
I turn to Ana.“Have you seen who’s just arrived?”
Morgana
I catch Sophos’s eye from across the hall, and the man offers me a respectful bow. He looks different out of robes. More human. His black coat hangs loosely on his thin frame, and there’s a wooden prosthetic now in place of his missing hand. I had the dryads team up with a clever geostri, enchanting the wood so the fingers would respond to the slight movement of muscles in his arm. Now he lifts that hand in greeting, the fingers unfurling almost as smoothly as the real thing.
When the dryads brought him to the healer’s tent at our war camp, they told me they’d found him lying in the forest among the dead. They’d been as shocked as I was to sense there was still the tiniest flicker of life in him—a shred of magic Caledon hadn’t bothered to take from him, clinging to a single ember of celestial spark.
It had taken me hours to revive him, but I managed it—and in return for his life, I asked for Sophos’s help. People of all beliefs and people of no faith at all should be allowed to live in peaceand freedom in Trova, but they couldn’t while they still lived in the Temple’s shadow. It needed to be taken apart, and I could think of few people better positioned to dismantle it than the ex-bearer.
Not everyone agreed, of course. Tira had several strong things to say. But I didn’t want to appoint someone who hated the Ethirans to the task. One of the reasons the Temple became so powerful was because of the resentment that built up after the war. I wanted to make it clear that it was Caledon’s Temple I was waging a war against, not Ethira himself, nor the people who hold him so strongly in their hearts and minds. I figured it would take one of their own—someone who’d shown he would put his morals over power—to do the job properly.
With Godom back under royal control, it also helps to have someone who understands the Temple’s inner workings. We have Lafia for that too, of course. She’s helping to look after the acolytes, trying to deprogram those who hadn’t yet left Bastion when Caledon was killed. Not all of them will be able to return to their families—there’s too much damage done to some. But we’re working on finding new homes for them.
It helps that we’ve have more contact from the dryads than ever before. The Agathyrians have sent healers in their hundreds to help mend the children the Temple broke in body and in mind. In the last few months, Diomi and the rest of the council have even been talking to me about opening up their borders and inviting non-dryad healers to train in Agathyre. Even without viatic magic, there’s a lot we can learn from them. I’ve been talking it over with Etusca, who’s currently tucking into some dessert a table down from me.
I sigh, thinking about it all—the negotiations, the rebuilding, the endless list of changes that have to be made if Trova’s scars are ever going to fade.
