Three years now since Esharah had been sent to Hellfrost. Three years, and now she was returning home. For whatever value Northstar held as a home.

  At her side, Mensikhana gasped even before the gates opened, the range of her mind domain no doubt feeling the teeming mass of people inside.

  “It can be overwhelming,” Esharah whispered in their minds. “Best to keep your guard up.”

  “There are...so many,” the whisper came back.

  A flood of memories returned as they passed through the gates, guards only giving a respectful nod towards Nadyar Velian before waving them through (gestures that the fourth-circle vis ignored). The shouts of vendors hawking their wares from stalls lining the street. Carts rattling by, wheels clattering over the cobblestones. Glimpses down alleys of laundry strung between buildings, fluttering like flags. The smells of a hundred cooking fires, sweat, livestock.

  With so much activity, the carriage nearly ground to a halt, proceeding only fitfully forward.

  “There aren’t supposed to be sellers this close to the gate.” Etrani frowned out the carriage window, squinting to view the scenery. “It’s not a designated market. How are they operating within full view of the guards?”

  “Bribes,” Esharah answered, half-watching the scenes outside, half reliving her own memories of the city. “East gate’s always been overlooked. Like all of Eastside. Fewer guards, so it’s easier to know who to bribe. And easier to get away with theft.”

  Even as Esharah watched one of the vendors, a child no older than ten darted out from an alley to snatch a bead necklace from the stall, dodging from the vendor’s frantic grasp with catlike reflexes. Fast enough that the child might be vis. Nearly two decades ago, that could have been Vestra. Before Esharah could see anything more, the carriage rumbled on, and the child vanished into the nearest alley. Hopefully back to family. More likely to offer the spoils as tribute to whichever petty lord of crime ruled that section of Eastside now.

  The carriage rumbled over a familiar bridge. The Whiterun flowed beneath them. This time of year, the name was a misnomer; the river was a sluggish, dark brown thing, clogged with early spring meltwater and slush from upstream. In summer, the river was clear and bright, even Northstar’s filth not enough to ruin the waters from further north. As a child, she’d spent many summer afternoons swimming here with Vestra. And the terrifying swim in the winter of Esharah’s eleventh year when the ice broke underfoot. Vestra had saved her then, dragging her shivering and half-frozen to shore. Esharah could still remember the feeling of her sister’s hands, rough and strong, pulling her from the water’s deadly embrace. Now Vestra’s hands were instruments of death.

  “Everything all right?” Aven’s voice cut through her reverie.

  Esharah pulled her awareness back and gave a reassuring smile, “Just...nostalgia.”

  Oh. He hadn’t been talking to her. Of course his attention was on Etrani, whose face was currently screwed up in a rather different sort of distaste.

  “This part of the city is always quite...noisy,” Etrani muttered, shifting uncomfortably.

  Mensikhana echoed the sentiment, though more in fascination than repugnance.

  “It’s a hive of sin and villainy, filth heaped upon filth,” Janaya spoke up, her gaze fixed on a tavern door as they passed. A drunk stumbled out, retching into a half-slushed snowbank. “Like the void itself. A festering wound. One day it will all burn.”

  Aven laughed, “Janaya, I heard you practicing that line on the road! You haven’t seen enough of the city for that to ring true. At least wait until you’ve had a chance to get to know its filth before you pronounce judgment.”

  “I spent months imprisoned here before they moved me to Hellfrost,” Janaya shot back.

  “Perhaps your perspective was somewhat...limited, then,” Etrani suggested, a bit of a defensive tone creeping in. “The city is more than its prisons or its less savory parts. Northstar’s inner districts are quite well kept. And while the harbor is equally...energetic, its sunsets are quite beautiful.”

  “I hadn’t taken you for the kind of woman to admire sunsets, Executor,” Mensikhana’s mental voice sounded amused.

  A puzzled look came in reply. “Do...only certain kinds of people appreciate natural beauty?”

  “The sun would set just as lovely without the empire’s decadence piled atop it,” Janaya said.

  “Decadence?” Aven laughed again. “Surely Northstar has its sins, but you cannot look around and claim decadence is one of them.” He gestured to the worn cobblestones, the grimy stone buildings, the general sense of weary struggle on the faces they passed. “Now, if we were in Primus or Thallakar, I would happily curse their decadence alongside you.”

  “Yet other parts of the city are far nicer,” Etrani at least seemed determined to give Northstar its best possible defense. “Very little in the city approaches opulence, but we have parks, temples,” she made a bit of a grimace, “...bathhouses in great numbers.”

  “Damn your temples with their false Ideals,” Janaya proclaimed. Apparently, the city had her in quite the mood. “Damn your bathhouses with their sin! They wash the body clean while tainting the soul!”

  Etrani gave Esharah an exasperated look, apparently recognizing that logic held little sway against the girl.

  “You left out the parks,” Aven noted.

  “The parks did nothing wrong,” Janaya replied.

  Aven grinned and raised his eyebrows. “One can sin quite creatively in a park.”

  “Parks should not be blamed for the wickedness of those who use them as an excuse,” Janaya gave Aven a scornful look.

  “Then why,” Aven leaned in as if closing for the kill, “should bathhouses?”

  Janaya blinked. Her mouth opened. Apparently, just as logic held little sway against her dogma, so did it hold little place in trying to defend against it. She fell into a moody silence, which the others took as a sign to resume admiring the scenery without interruption.

  “What has you so distressed?” Esharah asked.

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  “Out of my mind,” the hissed reply came with an impression of Hellfire. Not the actuality, not enough to burn the carriage, but a mental flame of pure frustration.

  Esharah took the hint and left Janaya to her brooding.

  * * *

  The carriages wended their way through Northstar’s streets. By the time they entered Citadel Hill on the north side of the city, most signs of squalor faded. Here, the city was as it ought to be. Wide, clean streets. Guards in polished armor at every corner. Buildings of stone and marble, imposing and orderly. Esharah could feel Etrani’s tension release the closer they came to the Governor’s Keep, the center of power in Septentrion. This was a world Etrani understood. This was where the Ideals were given shape in stone and steel. Where the machine of the empire ran with predictable, rhythmic precision.

  The Governor’s Citadel loomed over the district, a fortress within a fortress, surrounded by blackstone walls carved with intricate patterns. Without voidglass, carving blackstone took hours upon hours. Or a vis powerful enough to overcome its resistance. The carvings were a testament either to power or to patience. Possibly both.

  More guards at the citadel gate, who moved aside wordlessly at Nadyar Velian’s approach, their spears held at a perfect angle. No sign of emotion on their faces, no crack in the discipline. Even Esharah’s curious mental touch found nothing but the disciplined hum of training. Neither were guards she recognized, though both were young enough that they could easily have been new recruits in the three years of Esharah’s exile to Hellfrost.

  Through a secondary gate, across an immaculate courtyard, and into a second building nested inside the outer walls. The citadel proper, as clean and austere as the rest of Citadel Hill.

  They didn’t make it to the citadel doors before Esharah felt her sister’s presence explode onto the outer edge of her mental sense like an exploding star.

  Esharah barely had time to put out a warning to the others before Vestra descended right in the middle of their two groups, boned wings flaring out as her impact sent them all staggering back.

  “Esha!” Vestra beamed, wings flexing out like serpents ready to strike. “How wonderful to-”

  Vestra’s words were cut off by a baby’s cry. She turned to stare at Ouron and his family, Nora rocking the startled boy and trying to whisper comforting words while Ouron stepped between them and Vestra.

  “You’ve upset my son,” Ouron’s voice was flat.

  Vestra looked flabbergasted, “You...brought a baby all the way from Hellfrost?”

  “I was separated from my wife and child for months by my imprisonment,” Ouron put his good arm around Nora. “We’ll not part for so long again.”

  Esharah’s mental touch found Vestra...deflated. The aggressive energy that rolled off her turned to something more like bewilderment. A woman who could tear apart voidspawn, fighting, and hardened criminals with equal ease, utterly disarmed in an infant’s presence.

  “Well, sod me,” Vestra muttered. “Didn’t think you’d bring a squealing baby along.”

  “We are honored to accept your apology,” Nora said quickly.

  No one bothered to note that Vestra hadn’t actually apologized. Probably best not to press the point.

  “Well, let’s get inside then,” Vestra shook her head.

  “You know, I was leading them just fine without your intervention,” Nadyar Velian noted with a grin. “Didn’t even bring anyone to tears.”

  Vestra turned, and with no warning, her wings lashed out, boned spikes erupting at their edges. Esharah barely had time to gasp and duck - only to realize that the wings had no chance of hitting any of them. Except Nadyar Velian.

  Nadyar Velian laughed and flowed between the strikes like water. Effortlessly.

  It took Esharah a moment to realize Vestra’s attack was slower than usual. Not a serious assault. Just...a playful swat. Or what passed for playful among vis of the fourth circle. It just would have been brutally lethal if Nadyar Velian wasn’t faster than death.

  “Missed me,” Nadyar Velian winked and blew a kiss Vestra’s way.

  “Your job’s done, rat,” Vestra hadn’t deigned to give Nadyar Velian one of her affectionate nicknames. “I’ll escort our honored guests from here.”

  “As you wish,” Nadyar Velian bowed, and a blurred instant later, he was gone, vanishing from Esharah’s awareness just outside of the citadel walls. He was no longer her concern. Vestra was. The wave of smug triumph that pulsed from Vestra’s mind as she turned back to them was almost as loud as her voice.

  Mensikhana’s voice reached Esharah’s mind again, from the back of the group where she was intentionally trying not to be noticed, “This...this is your sister? This is the woman who Sergrud thought he could defeat?”

  Esharah gave confirmation, feeling a sense of relief that Mensikhana finally understood the depth of Sergrud fel-Maies’ delusions. Esharah also wondered briefly how Vestra would react to know that both she and Mensikhana had, under vastly different circumstances, been lovers of Sergrud.

  “And now we’re finally together again,” Vestra hooked one arm around Esharah’s shoulders, the other hooking around Etrani’s, practically dragging them towards the doors. “My dear sister and dear friend, back from Hellfrost!”

  Etrani’s chagrin told Esharah that being Vestra’s “friend” was just as much a burden as being her sister. Etrani was too stiff to relax under the possessive arm, but didn’t fight her either.

  Esharah noticed Vestra’s gaze drifting to Aven, and she tensed, breath held, waiting for another round of the circle of violence as Vestra’s perverse way of flirtation.

  A blow that never came, because before Vestra could speak, Sunshine darted in, falling to one knee before her.

  “Lady Vestra vis Nightblood!” Sunshine proclaimed. “Tales of your power and beauty have echoed through all of Septentrion! Truly an honor to meet one who combines strength and grace in such wondrous-“

  Vestra kicked him. A single twitch of her leg that sent the boy flying ass over end. Right into a pile of half-melted sludge where the courtyard’s shoveled snow had been piled out of the way.

  “You brought a baby and a fool?” Vestra stared after the boy incredulously.

  Sunshine popped up chuckling as if nothing was wrong. He rolled out of the snowdrift, shedding his outer cloak to reveal completely dry clothes beneath.

  “Apologies,” he bowed. “You’ve made your feelings abundantly clear, madame. If there’s one skill I’ve learned, it’s grace in rejection. I’ll not spread my words where they are unwanted.”

  If that were true, Esharah thought, the boy would speak considerably less than he actually did.

  Vestra turned her attention away with a roll of her eyes. Also sparing Aven, as it happened. “In any case, we’re all eager to see you back,” Vestra continued, giving Esharah a possessive squeeze.

  Esharah froze, “...and who is ‘we’?”

  There were plenty in Northstar with cause to detest her. Esharah’s time as inquisitor and spy had earned her as many enemies as Vestra’s work as enforcer. Some more devoted enemies, because a knife in the back left deeper wounds than a stamping boot.

  As if in answer to the question, a wave of hatred struck Esharah at that exact instant. Deep, burning hatred. Directed right as her.

  Her gaze snapped to the side. To see a woman Esharah didn’t recognize. An ordinary human woman, unremarkable in every way, dressed in servant’s garb and sweeping a path leading off to the garden. The woman held her broom with white-knuckled grip, knuckles bulging with the intensity of her feeling. Her face was a mask of pure venom. A mask that the woman tried and failed to school into a look of empty deference when she realized Esharah was staring right at her.

  Before Esharah could send a mental query, Vestra swept them away. Not looking at the woman at all.

  Vestra didn’t even answer Esharah’s question. Just moved on as if nothing was amiss.

  They proceeded down a long, austere hall, their boots echoing on the polished blackstone floor. Tapestries depicting the Paragons hung between tall, narrow windows, the largest depicted the Sage King, Ramos Kaezar, proclaiming the Empire renewed as the sun rose to end the Dark Century. A grand, inspiring piece of art. Provided one took the formation of the Empire as good. For the many who were conquered or annexed into its formation, the scene was one of subjugation, not rebirth. Mensikhana’s scorn reminded Esharah there was at least one person among their company in that camp.

  The door at the end of the hall was rather anticlimactic for being the last threshold before the governor. It still sent a tremor through Esharah. She’d only been in that sanctum once before, when Iraias condemned her to Hellfrost as punishment for failure to execute the Empire’s will with sufficient zeal. At the time, she’d thought it was the end of her life. It had been, in a way.

  The door opened, and Esharah gasped as a presence hidden to her mind revealed itself. Beside Iraias stood another figure. A woman with steel gray hair and empty eyes. The eldest of Iraias’ fourth circle vis, and the woman who taught Esharah how to lie and kill.

  “Madame Truthteller,” Esharah whispered.

  The woman’s sightless gaze fell on her, and the barest touch of a smile quirked the edge of her mouth, “Esharah. Welcome back, our wayward daughter.”

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