A Missive Received at Calomel Hall.

[Carnath-Emory]

Such care, inherent in each motion of his hands; such precision, and it is all so very familiar. Haven't they been here before? So many times, except that then it was her hands that burned to rend and savage, her nerves that longed to spiral into violence. And then, as now, there was simply no time made for it, and instead of anything else at all what she finds herself saying is:

"Cinnabar Calomel. You have turned chess into a game of dice."

Chiding, from the distance of her narrow perch, and this is some arch glance down towards him to accompany a very dubious tone, but:

"Heads," she adds, and a little hastily - this being the once-Governor, after all, and clearly inclined to a spot of mischief; she is suddenly certain that he'd have chosen for her, if she'd let him. Silence is permission, in certain circles. And his as well. When he wants it to be.

"Would that it were this simple," she's murmured - moments later, and with an eye for that playing board. Look at its small population, look at how cleanly these two small armies have arranged themselves; look at the polish of even the blackest armour. They must be Razasan battalions. No-one else has such discipline. "This straightforward. Uniforms, so that we will know at a glance, in an instant, do we see friend or corpse. Distinct lines of engagement. Assassins," a rag for her hands; there was precious little left of that salve but it leaves the fingers greasy all the same. "Assassins ought to be easy to slaughter, like any other streltsy. Just a face." Something caught in the edge of a fingernail; the rag worries at it. "And then not even that."

The hand cannot pause but the words do; this is a slow glance towards the man, the man and his mischief and his sparkling little coin.

"Would you do a thing for me? I have already," some tiny, almost-smile, "asked so much; what is one thing more, mn?"

[Cinnabar]

The coin spins, rises and descends; caught with a snatch of his right hand, slapped to the back of his left.

"Strategy is ever the slave of chance. This is only a small thing, though, to see who moves first." He lifts his hand to peer at the trapped coin, then grins.

"Heads it is." A moment to let her see for herself, and the turns the board so that the white pieces stand before her, awaiting her command. "To the victor, the spoils."

He settles into his seat, elbow resting on the table, waiting. No sleight of hand in that coin-toss, but the result was not entirely free of trickery. He watches to see if she spots it, knuckle touched to his lips as if to hide that small smile.

"We might easily include assassins, if you wish; secretly mark one of each other's pawns on the base, and let it be moved normally - until it is positioned where it can do the most harm, then move it as your own piece." Thoughtful, perhaps amused by the idea, grim as it is. "How differently might we play, not knowing when a loyal pawn might suddenly strike down our King?" A very Myrken sort of chess.

"If they made themselves easily noted and quickly dispatched they would not be very good assassins. And there is a reason commanders frown upon soldiers talking to one another across the battlefield. A black pawn and a white pawn have more in common with each other than with their betters, hm?" Sobering a touch, fingertips drumming lightly on the tabletop. "It is harder to kill a man when you recognise the shape of his smile or sound of his voice, hm? When you can see him as a person, more than just a nameless shape to be struck down."

To her request, then an easy nod. He imagined he'd have time for it while she decided on her opening move. "Name it."

[Carnath-Emory]

A sparkle of tumbling silver, and is this not some sleight of hand after all? A snatch of the fingers, a slap of sound; it is a deft little performance, and by the end of it she's laughing despite herself. Perhaps his attempt at good spirits is infectious after all. Still:

"'A small thing.'" And it is that dubious tone all over again, even as she leans to be sure of that coin's fate. "Do you actually believe this?"

She must shift a little then, adjust her posture upon this window-ledge to properly examine the board he's set between them, this patchwork of gloss and very stark colour and - ah. No. It dissatisfies. He will know it when she leans, and not to select from amongst the playing pieces but to touch two fingertips to the chessboard's edge -

"Cinnabar. Do you forget? I am the cataclysm that has come upon Myrkentown, and you? Our light amidst dark places."

- and turn it. With some smug edge to the shape of her mouth; it is no smile at all, no match for his own, but its satisfaction is clear. Fingertips have paused then, poised above the array of pieces; touch to the edge of a pawn, glance across a castle's stern contours.

"We might include assassins. But in all of Myrken I know only of one, and he is neither mine to command nor fit for this playing-board today. And do you know? That my request concerns him." He is eyed across the playing field, this young man who'd given his assent so freely. "When you leave this place - at whatever the hour. You might visit to the Rememdium. You might search there for a man in - mm. Very poor condition." They'd dropped him onto the lawn. The things it must have done to his ribs. "He had the worst of it from those flames, I think; certainly there are things very broken. You might make note of his face - for yourself, mn? You might send word to me after, if all you discover is that he has died."

A prospect that the swordswoman does not like to entertain, and the reasons for this are so complicated; have their root in the words which this man has himself spoken. For - see? Her nod has not hesitated.

"I told him that. Not so well, I think. Not so clearly. That if this were not Myrken we might simply sit for a time - a table, some bottles of something vile; even a very good dinner. We might simply sit and speak of these things: what plagues this place, what troubles his employer. It might be sorted - that way. But you say this thing - names, voices; his was the first move, and he might have ended me before I knew much more than the shape of his face.

First is only a small thing when we choose to make it small."

A bishop's elegant contours; her fingertips touch, select, has it plucked from its place between knight and king and off a few paces in some obscure angle.

"This one. This one does not tarry long amongst the rest."

[Cinnabar]

"Who acts first is a matter of circumstance. Circumstance can be overcome." With limitationss, of cours; but even those can by worked around.

She turns the board, and there is a thin press of his lips, brows lifting in wry disapproval. After he'd thought himself so subtle, so clever, choosing a colour for her without appearing to - to have it so bluntly dismissed.

Some small disappointment, too, a faint regret for the day he taught this weapon about symbols. He'd hoped for a simple game, a contest of strategy in which each piece was defined solely by the moves it might make, not by roles or names or meanings or identities ascribed to it. Something clean, untainted by the messy confusion of Myrken Wood. But... no, it is not to be, not when there is such insistence.

Very well, then.

He listens carefully to her request, nodding slowly at the description of where to find the man, of his injuries; he cannot keep his eyes from flicking to her shoulder, to the feet and calves so thoroughly anointed with salve. It brings a hardness to his gaze when he eventually speaks.

"I'll find him. Have you a message for him?" He presumes he does not know this man, and the matters discussed - the things which might still an assassins hand - do not apply.

His hand drifts across the board to make some adjustments on both sides of the board; a pawn shifted here to allow that bishop his escape, another nudged there such that moves have been made on both sides to render the board legal. A couple of his own pawns advance carefully, each closely guarding his brother against the bishop's charge. A quiet defiance, maybe; she will have her metaphors, but he will have his game.

"Who acts first is a small thing compared to who acts last."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Circumstances must be overcome. And so here you sit, mn?" A tilt of the chin towards him, sat there just past the breadth of a playing-board. "Come all this way for friendship's sake; for re-acquaintance and for proof that you do yet live - I did not," she's admitted with this thin smile, "much think it could be otherwise. But also for, mm - interrogatings. Ignorance is a circumstance. Perhaps the most deadly, yes?"

But what is this? Disapproval? There was a smile for her just moments ago and here is its return; small but certain, for this man and his half-frowning resignation. "Tell me something," and here she's slightly leaned again, nods towards where silver had once tumbled and shone. "That coin. How did you do that?" A cautiously-vague question, but unnecessary a moment later for with a laugh she's already explaining: "I did not quite see it. But there was something. Your face betrays. Smug"

Back in her makeshift seat then, and the fingers are back to their hovering as well; nevermind that he is still determining his move. Chess is the sport of the well-heeled and civilised; one might have expected the swordswoman to practice some manners about it. Perhaps another day. The other bishop - no; her touch has lit upon a knight.

"How closely would you keep your pawns, were you to know an assassin moved amongst them?" The fingertips linger; tap lightly upon the playing piece once, twice. And pauses then, as Calomel rearranges pieces, and not only his own. Something like approval, some half-heard thing murmured beneath her breath -

"I have no message for that man." And this is true, in the sense that she's not been able to imagine what words she might say, were they to meet a second time. Or even if there would be any words at all. "But I would have you know the look of him. And I would know does he live or die; it cost, to deliver him to that place yet breathing.

If I am the first to act," the head lifts then, the gaze meets his evenly across the battlefield, grey upon paler grey. "Then I will endeavour to make mine the only action. This man, he brings two bottles to my table; we share this wine of his."

An implication. And fingers have plucked this knight from his seat; has hopped it over one of the pawns which Calomel had rearranged, but still it clings closely to castle and monarchs.

"It could have been poison - very easily. It could have been a knife from the doorway. I would never have known, until that moment in which knowing no longer mattered."

[Cinnabar]

Smug, she says, and that has his own smile returning, albeit with a half-despairing sigh.

"The illusion of choice. I let you make a decision that didn't matter, so you might think you had a say in which side you played." Picking up the coin, to show first the side bearing a regal profile. "You chose heads and won, so as your prize I set you to play as white - after all, it is an advantage to move first, so it makes sense to grant it for guessing correctly." The coin turns in his fingers to show the reverse, a heraldic beast stamped into the metal.

"Had the coin shown tails I would have won; as my prize I'd've chosen to play as black - and you'd still take the white pieces." Does she see? The trickery was not at all in the coin or the fingers that caught it. "I presented you with a choice that wouldn't change the outcome one way or the other, as I'd simply change the rules to suit me either way."

Some small exasperation as he flicks a hand at the board, in which the white pieces now sat before him. And perhaps, just perhaps, grudging amusement.

"And, of course, Ariane Emory ignored this cleverness and played as she wanted anyway."

Watching her own adjustment of pieces, a turn taken; one of his pawns moves forward, making a trap of a couple of places from which that knight might threaten mischief. The bishop has no clear line to the heart of his domain just yet, but he'd have to remain vigilant to keep it so.

"Traitor pawns are still pawns, constrained in their movements - a single step forward, or back, only able to strike down a foe on the diagonal. So, as long as one was aware of the threat, one might guard against it - arrange it such that only other pawns are threatened, the nobles standing either at a safe distance or close enough to breathe down a pawn's neck." Either way staying out of those dangerous squares, so that only the careless would fall to the assassin's blade. Thus even the threat of an assassin would be enough to restrict a noble's options still further. Unable to trust, unable to rely entirely upon their servants.

"At what point was it clear he might wish to kill you?" Before or after they shared wine, say. On the subject of carelessness again.

"And why is there even a chance he still breathes?"

[Carnath-Emory]

I let you make a decision that didn't matter, so you might think you had a say in which side you played.

It takes the breath right out of her lungs.

And he may never realise it: the man is thorough in addressing a swordswoman's sudden curiosity; her recovery was swift, the moment already passed. But these are words which will linger long past the conclusion of this game - this exercise - and their resonance reaches far deeper than she likes. Motion: in the eyes, and very little else at all. Quickly this way and that between white playing-pieces and glossy black - and in a moment's sudden laughter she's clapped both hands together; sudden approval.

"Slonshaal, Cinnabar Calomel. It's clever. I would have said to you: have caution with card games - for your face, mn? It speaks for you, speaks things you would rather have hid. But I would have said this in error, or somewhat so. You show me these coin, you name me these stakes, and none of it mattered. It was - a thing, a thing to draw the eye. Empty and purposeful, no mere feint but a - " and what had the man's words been? "A deflection. A redirection. Yes?

But it is as you say." And she is eased back upon her perch now, with an eye for these pieces and for what might be... reluctant amusement in the man's grey eyes. "This is a game for - clerics and clerks and the noble-born; for mn - academics, generals. Perhaps not the likes of me." Her turn for amusement then, small and clear. "What can I do but what I have always done? One day it might be my end. Another? Perhaps it overturn an applecart."

This small, small smile.

And eyes for the board thereafter, as he rearranges things in small ways. Small and significant; is that peril lurking in wait for her knight? But her fingers have closed upon a castle's hard angles, and there is a clear line of departure available to it: it is some dazzling leap of motion, taking it well distant from the rest - but not so near to Calomel's lurking assets, not yet.

"This? Moves at speed - across significant distance - upon the path of its choosing. Tomorrow? Who knows where it might be found." Traitor pawns. "I think that were I to employ assassins upon a man I would have him know this. Advance of their approach." A lift of her eyes, the mouth some thoughtful shape. "It would be as you say: if any man might be an assassin then all men will be treated as assassins; who can he keep close to him? He must thrust them all away, he cannot even tell them why. He will require a confidante despite. Just one. Every hour in that man's company is a balm, is a horror. He awaits the knife.

Helstone. Yes?"

A moment for sunshine, now. A moment to lean her head back against the window glass, let the eyes close as her skin drinks in the sun's precious, burning warmth.

"It was clear when he put his blade through my shoulder. But the second thing he spoke to me was that we were certain to spend the night upon disagreements. A man who knows my face, my name; other things. And he says this." The implication, its crystalline clarity. "But there was more than this. A - custom, which he shared with me. Before we drank."

[Cinnabar]

"A misdirection. Pointing the gaze aside to some useless distraction, when the true meat of things happens elsewhere." And that is a smug little smile as the coin rolls back and forth across his knuckles. "Watch for it, whenever someone offers a choice without first clearly describing what you are choosing between. Look for the options they do not mention."

Like, for instance, ignoring the coin-toss and turning the board as it suits you.

"The rook" a gentle lesson there, a reminder, "was once a chariot; it moves fast, but in straight lines only - direct, unable to turn aside." His own bishop sidles a single space, to watch the field between the shoulders of a couple of pawns. Back the the matter of assassins.

"Helstone was more aware of it than many of his predecessors. Too aware, maybe. But he did better than many, and when he was eventually betrayed it didn't come as a great surprise."

A defence takes form on his side of the board, an uneven line of pawns with each guarded by its fellows or a waiting noble; wherever she might think to take a piece, retribution would be swift. The footsoldiers shield their commanders, but the commanders stand ready to avenge each warrior that falls.

"What custom?" He expected a touch of glasses, some toast or oath or benediction. Good health, good cheer; to the memory of the fallen, perhaps.

"At what point did he reveal himself as an assassin?"

[Carnath-Emory]

There come some soft, musing sound as she watches the play of a coin amongst fingers; sleight of hand all over again, less a matter of trickery than of art and appreciable because of it. Because these, too, are words which resonate, and she is slow in their swallowing; after a time, offers only: "I find - that very seldom am I approached with choices at all. It is - do this thing, or do that thing; it is rarely choose. That is only for - amongst friends, like this. For gaming. Small things."

His bishop makes a bishop's sneaky progress. It is a guard, where it stands. Or it is at a pulpit, breathing judgement down upon the shoulders of its pawns.
Horrible bishop. Her own is more dangerous. But it is also so distant. For a time her hand cannot decide whether to rectify this.

"This chariot," her smile appreciates his clarification, "moves in that way because it has tasked itself, and it will not be turned aside from its intentions. There is a word: decisive. Who knows what it does over here? No pawn, I think. Perhaps not even bishops." A sour glance towards his meddling own. A pawn is shifted two spaces, to draw alongside her pacing knight. "This one? We are not sure of her. She lingers near the knight because she is made to, but soon enough she will wander. Perhaps by the end of this game she has made of herself a queen, mn? Or perhaps she is only fodder.

Perhaps in a moment she changes her colour and then she is yours."

This small, particular smile - and is it a defensive game which he plays? It seems so. At first glance, at second. Bait flanked by muscle. Or the slow beginnings of an assault.

"This man - he brings two bottles to my table, and then it is ours. And when he pours, I ask him how is it that they drink - amongst his people. A touch of glasses? Some words? I wondered."

Even even that must seem strange to his ears; strange or inevitable, and knowing this she still continues.

"So he tells me this thing, and I remember the words because - " Pauses, then. To slightly lean, with an elbow upon the one knee and eyes for Calomel's own; solemn, now. "Because it is not a thing which I wish ever to forget. When a person - not a friend, not even an acquaintance - when such a person is to say a thing which is of such importance to them; which has such meaning. That - for me - is beyond price. 'n werthfawroca," and sound of it is so gentle. "To be cherished."

It is much more than she would ordinarily say. It is entirely too much. And there is some colour to her as she slightly shakes her head; shifts a shoulder this very small way.

"So. He tell me: 'Wine is our lifeblood. We take it serious. So we meet each other in silence, and hold it for ten seconds.' Before we drink, you see?

And so we did. His eyes to mine."

[Cinnabar]

"Everything is a choice - to do that thing, or not do it. And when you are given only a single path, that's when you look hardest for alternatives."

Leaning in his seat, chin resting upon curled fingers as she ascribes motives, thoughts, intent to those pieces, eyes alone moving for a time.

"Whatever she intends, she can't march alongside the knight for long - he takes a different path. It might cross hers again further across the board. He might even track her from a distance, keeping clear the spaces she'll have to cross." And so her progress is assured, her guardian escorting her to the far side of the board and a coronation.

"Unless she's deemed too great a threat, and more than a single knight can endure is turned to her destruction. But even then, that's strength drawn away from elsewhere on the board, hm?"

The threat of force, every bit as effective as force itself.

He plays a united game, back-and-forth support between pawns and nobles, offering her no prospect of a gain without her paying a bitter cost in return. Before long the pawns will march forward with firm intent, and it will be a rolling wave.

He listens carefully, as she describes his ritual, his custom, as he notes how deeply it left its mark on the swordswoman. A quiet stretch of heartbeats, before he reaches for the lone piece that had not been placed on the board at the game's start; a pawn, not glossy black or gleaming white but dull grey. It had a special significance, had been included in the set with a very particular meaning which had not been lost on her at all. Here, in the middle of the board, a suitable spot - a knight's move before a white pawn diligently guarding the path to his king.

Let her look upon it, and see the stand-off presented; each with a clear space ahead, but one which will immediately result in his own downfall - unless the other was somehow given cause to hesitate.

"Tell me: which of you moved first?" Rhetorical in tone; let her consider her answer once she has given it.

[Carnath-Emory]

"A single path is no choice at all. It is a command, and nevermind whose voice has spoken it." So: alternatives, and she has nodded her small, grim agreement; adds, a moment after it: "I know a swordsman from his walk - as do you by now, I think." A glance, for confirmation. "From his manner, from the way he sit a chair. If he is exceedingly good I will know him from his posture. This man did not wear his weapons openly, and it did not matter; I knew him from his approach.

And - later - his eyes."

This playing-board. It is inadequate for what she had intended; they would have had to begin with so many pieces removed from the board completely, scattered here and there across the stained tabletop. And with the sides unbalanced in any case, a host of them clustered on Calomel's side of things, stern and confronting and utterly unknowable.

"They are kept to each other than, these two. Yes?" Knight. Pawn. The one's erratic progress; the other, struggling because - "He's always chosen his own path. Of course she can't keep a-pace with him; who ever could? He will do as he will do, unless a pawn has discovered how to leash a knight." But this unlikely pair becomes a trio in short order; a second knight moves to flank this pawn, even as the first turns its face aside from this sight. What chance do they stand against the co-operative front which Calomel presents? Very little; he assembles his forces with cautious precision. With each round their strength multiplies, each tiny victory will magnify their resolve. And still, this scattered collection of black pieces is yet to properly advance at all.

Her hand hovers, undecided.
The modification which Calomel makes to their game does not change this.

A fingertip touches upon the head of that new piece, all pale in its ambivalent grey. It is given a minimal tilt, from which it proves capable of quietly recovering. This swordswoman is frowning her indecision, slow and wordless, until with a shake of the head she leans to reach directly across the board and perform an exchange: a white rook takes the place of that pawn.

"Better. We do not discount this man's reach. We do not forget that if he moves first, his victory is certain. And Cinnabar, he does."

Rhetorical question. But look at a woman answer anyway. As if she hadn't noticed, and perhaps as if she hadn't cared.
But this might yet be forgiven. Her answer, after all, is not a matter of words but of motion: a fingertip set behind that rook's peak, sliding it forward - a single space.

"Like this."

[Cinnabar]

By his walk, yes; by where his attention lingers, however briefly. By the way his weight is always balanced, quick to move forward or back on an instant's notice.

But Myrken Wood is not short of those trained in the way of the sword, so there is no reason he might immediately be identified as a murderer.

Each move of the knight and pawn matched by a move on his own side, bolstering, reinforcing, redistributing. The forces of light as they should be - regimented, coordinated, united. No fractious bickering here. So it is a poor map for Myrken Wood indeed. That pawn and its flanking knights are a source of uncertainty to him, though, a faint frown creasing his brow as he ponders for a time. But the question is left unasked for now, attention instead turning to the grey pawn and its battle of nerves with the white... rook, very well.

A single space forward, when a sensible - no, a sane move would have been a step to the side in preparation for a charge directly down the file to ensure the grey pawn's demise. Instead, only folly. Or...

"He didn't expect to win, hm?" Hoped? No, not even that. "No; he hoped to bring you down, but in no event did he expect to survive." The grey pawn is nudged onto the rook's square, locked in bitter struggle.

"That move is desperation and despair. His only chance of survival was in your hesitation. So." A small pantomime with one hand; an bottle poured, before fingers pinch around the stem of an unseen glass and raise it in toast, all while his eyes rest steady upon her own.

[Carnath-Emory]

He's right, of course. And clearly in a manner that Ariane had never thought to imagine, unless one is willing to believe that the swordswoman considers any armed approach to her seat as a prelude to murder. This might not actually be so. See how closely she examines these pieces: how the one will move some tiny pace and then the other in kind; how, with a lean of her arm, she may move the two of them in circling tandem. And look: now there is a grey pawn standing with the rest in that stern, pale line; the white rook is left a pace nearer to the board's center, quite out of place, and a swordswoman's thin shoulders are shaking with silent laughter.

"It could have been this way. Yes? A school, Cinnabar. Streets which a man may walk without fearing much more than a, a pickpocket. The occasional threat - deftly contained. Don't imagine I wouldn't have shed blood to achieve that. On his behalf. And in quantity - "

If not for a single phrase, a single line sketched with such deliberate care between mercenary and assassin. So that even while the laughter softly lingers, she is replacing those pieces; the world is set back into its order, and there is a hand raking back through her hair as she subsides; as she listens. He will know when the words become difficult to her ears; he will know when she begins to nurture a distinct uncertainty. For all her talk of just minutes ago, there are things which this face reveals as well, and the scarring does little to tamper with that. The uneven line that her mouth has become. The one-two tap of fingertips upon her lips. Restless.

"No. And yes." And it was so long a silence before she spoke even that much. "We did this thing, this custom - yes? And then there came this thing we two spoke of just moments ago: one-two choices, mn? Two ways only. It was the first of our disagreements." Of which he'd said there would be several; prescient. "Two bad choices? I would demand a third. He, though, he would select the least damaging of the two. This much, we said. And that was when he told me that he would accept no - "

The tiniest smile; a pointed glance down towards the playing board.

" - no stalemates between us that night. So. You tell me this again: this man who would sacrifice an arm to save the more valuable leg. He intended we both would die there?"

It is preposterous. And it is a question that is not rhetorical as well; that much is clear in the eyes that have set upon Calomel's own, in the appeal written there.

And how swiftly, how utterly, it falls away when he mimes the lifting of that glass.

[Cinnabar]

"It could still be this way. But if it is to be so, there are rules. A pawn may only move thus, a bishop may only move thus. It must be played in the correct way, or the entire game is a sham no matter the colour of your pieces."

Absolutely resolute on this point. There are lines one does not cross, prices one refuses to pay.

"He meant to turn you aside, to keep you from entering Myrken more than a half-mile, one way or another. He knew of you, hm? He recognised you, no doubt he had learned what he could about you. He would be aware that you were skilled, perhaps too skilled for him. But with that knowledge comes a certain respect for a fellow weapon.

"So, first, he talks to you. Explains the situation, appeals to your conscience - if you press on it will mean terrible disaster for the land, the death of all the good that Governor Burnie promises. You share wine and he tells you of this tradition. Are you not both civilised, reasonable beings? Then the reasonable, civilised thing to do is to turn back and leave the Governor to his great work." Step by step, laying out the assassin's thoughts as meticulously as he'd moved chessmen across the board.

"Perhaps he hopes the wine will dull your wits. Perhaps he believes death will take him soon, and savours his drink as a last luxury." He shrugs, little difference between the two at this point.

"You are resolute. So next he offers you the illusion of choice - leave Myrken forever or perish at his hand. It is a false choice, because either way he has what he wants and you do not. Again, Ariane Emory ignores such cleverness and chooses her own path. By now it becomes clear that blades must be drawn before too long. So. The time for talking ends, and it is he who ends it. Who seeks to end you. He fights knowing that he will likely die, but what choice does he have? To survive and see Burnie's works undone? No. He will martyr himself in your destruction, and Myrken will be saved or he will not be there to see it fall."

A fanatic, then. As intent as any cultist, any who has sworn his life to the service of an idea. How many such madmen had they slain between them, by blade or noose? Hopefully enough.

"By now you have been in conversation for some little while, and he has made himself very much more than a mere figure behind a sword to you; he has a face, a voice, tastes and traditions. And you, Ariane Emory, have learned pity. His words couldn't sway you, but he hopes that they might slow your hand long enough for his to strike. This works in some ways, but not as he hoped."

The white rook falls, but is taken and set carefully back in its corner where it began; the way to the king is open for that grey pawn, should she choose to step forward. Or she might remain where she is, become part of that uneven line of stalwart defenders. At last he sits back in his chair, eyes lifting from the board with something like satisfaction.

"And here we are."

[Carnath-Emory]

"It must be played in the correct way, or the entire game is ended."

The correct way, which is to say that it must be played in Ariane Emory's way - but this is of a sudden too much; excessive, for a woman usually more careful in her employ of absolutes. No, the lift of a hand disavows it.

"No. It is as you say, and I told him as much: that clearly he had been educated. He did not deny this." He'd laughed, instead. They both had. As weapons do. "An appeal to my conscience - is that what it was, that talk of schools, of prosperity? But be sure of what you say, Cinnabar: that this man would appeal to my heart's better nature, and conclude by speaking the words which that heart could not tolerate. It was no casual statement, this - desecration of urns. It was carefully said. It is certain that he knew what I would reckon of it. 'Educated', yes? And persuasive, as you would have it -

"And yet he speak the words which would ensure that I do not turn away. He say the thing that he know I cannot accept, because what it describes is my inability to accept."

But the swordswoman lapses into silence when Calomel's intentions become clear. Drawing circumstance to conclusion. Discounting coincidence; pinpointing vulnerability. Sketching in clean, stark lines a portrait of the most dazzling sort of manipulation, and all of it as clearly notated as a list of conspirators' names: follow one to the next, on and on down the page until we reach its horrifying and essential conclusion -

Even before he has finished, her spine is rested back into the window-panes. Long before his voice has begun to quiet there are fingertips pressed there, low at her side and blindly so; pressed to the glass just to feel its fragile texture; just to know its presence. Here, the glass. Beyond it, broad skies and endless roads. How easily we might simply step from this room, set our boots to gravel and walk and keep on walking. How easily we might turn our backs upon a thing which is so distinctly repugnant that its very description offends. The impulse exists, in the clench of her stomach, in features fallen still and quiet. It would be so easy to move, and having moved, not stop.

"You sound like Bromn."

A while after he's finished; a moment in which the silence had begun to stretch long between them. And so calmly spoken; so casually. The things which come out of a person's mouth when the room has grown so cold.

"'You were never so sentimental, Ariane'. 'Why would you hesitate, Ariane'. Did you know that sometimes, Cinnabar, sometimes I just really wanted to - "

We pause upon the edge of the precipice.
We slowly breathe, a reminder that our will is still strong.
And then it is possible to properly speak again.

"That doesn't matter, though. It doesn't even matter that you're wrong; that I always knew - pity. Sympathy. Empathy.

I just didn't care."

Councilor Treadwell's sweating scalp. The schiavona's elegant grip. How he'd howled.

"I think that you misjudge. Look."

And she has leaned to rearrange these pieces over again: the rook, her own grey self. They are given a place at the chessboard's center, and this time the rook must leap only two spaces in order to capture her. She has granted it a clear line of approach; she has also added a pawn, very near to the grey. The rook might capture her in only a single move. The pawn might guard her in only a single move.

"That. That is how we began."