The royal palace of Moristaim had never been built with the intention of housing prisoners, no matter how exalted their status in the kingdom of Lucania. It had only actually been completed in the eleven-hundred and fourteenth year after Miriam’s rebellion began, during the reign of Millie’s great, great grandfather, Roland the first.

Before that, House Loredan had ruled from the Seastone Tower, raised a thousand years earlier on a headland of rock that jutted out to shelter Freeport Harbor from the north - the section of the harbor which would eventually become the King’s Port. It was said that the foundations had been laid by Miriam’s son Lucan, the first baron of Freeport, using limestone mined from nearby sea-cliffs.

While the windows in Millie’s fourth-story tower chambers had been fitted with glass much later, they had originally been covered with waxed paper to let the light through. The wooden shutters were certainly not original either, though she had no doubt they’d simply been replaced over and over down through the centuries, with perhaps small alterations to account for more modern styles. Regardless, with the shutters open the cool autumn breeze of the ocean chilled the rooms, despite the fire burning in the hearth and the carpets on the floors. With the windows closed, however, it became impossible to ignore the fact that she was imprisoned.

There was nothing so crass as iron bars, of course, and the furnishings of her chambers were nearly as luxurious as what she’d been used to in her own rooms. It was better than the years Millie had spent at Coral Bay, certainly, in that wretched High Hall where she’d been forced to endure the privation of sharing space with other women. Her great-uncle Caspian had even approved Millie’s request to have her own bed and vanity moved from the royal palace into the tower, and she spent every night with the heavy curtains hanging from the frame drawn close about the bed, to keep in as much heat as possible.

Of course, when the nursemaid brought Lucan to visit her, the windows needed to be closed so that the baby wouldn’t catch a chill. That temporary loss of open sky was a price that Millie was willing to pay, each afternoon, to hold her son in her arms.

Unfortunately, the nurse had not been alone when she arrived that afternoon: Caspian Loredan had accompanied her.

Millie’s great-uncle dressed in thick, fur-lined robes to ward off the chill of autumn on the sea, and had even worn a great cloak with layered storm flaps. The heavy garment had been immediately thrown over the back of one of the wooden chairs near the fire; the other chair creaked as the old mage lowered himself into it. The nurse - whose name Millie had never bothered to learn - was dismissed entirely, leaving only this small, withered royal family.

“I wanted you to be informed that the queen of the alliance has arrived in the city,” Caspian began, rubbing his wrinkled old hands together in the warmth of the fire.

Millie sniffed. “Queen. She’s a jumped up bastard. No woman who spent her childhood emptying chamber pots can ever be a true queen,” she grumbled. “I suppose she’s come to gloat over me? Wants to get a look at this miserable place, so she can be certain I’m suffering enough to please her?”

“No, based on my experience of Liv Brodbeck, I doubt that she’ll want to see you at all,” the archmage said. “I expect her to ask why you’re still in the city, and I will answer that we wanted to be certain both you and the child had recovered from the birth, and were strong and healthy, before making any changes.”

“You still intend to send me away, do you?” Millie said. She couldn’t help the urge to pull her sleeping son tight against her chest, as if he was going to be snatched out of her arms right then and there, and the motion made him give a soft cry in his sleep.

“Those are the terms agreed to in order to secure peace,” Caspian reminded her. “I will not be breaking them - nor, you will find, does the rest of the council of regents have any interest in doing so.”

“The dukes won’t even speak to me.”

The old man nodded. “I am aware. I imagine it is rather a shock to find out just how few true friends you actually had.”

“Bennet would have stood by me,” Millie spat. “And she killed him. I hate her.”

“I would encourage you to put those sorts of thoughts aside, as they will not be productive.” Caspian sighed. “I argued to delay your questioning until after you had given birth, and both the other regents and the Temple of the Trinity were willing to allow that. But now the child is growing strong, I can offer no further reason to delay. Eustace has insisted on taking charge of that matter himself. I pray to the gods that you truly had no idea what your grandmother was doing, for if they find any hint you’ve devoted yourself to the Lady of Blood, I will not be able to save you from the fire.”

“I am your queen,” Millie sneered. “You cannot burn your queen.”

“You are not -”

“My father has abdicated, the coward, and that makes me queen,” Millie reminded him.

Her great-uncle leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “You will abdicate, as well. That is part of the peace, and it is the condition of you being allowed to join your parents in exile on Delveigh Island.”

Millie shook her head. “You need me to actually say the words, and I won’t do it. I refuse to give up my birthright. What are you going to do, Uncle? Have me tortured?” She knew that he wouldn’t, and the sigh he gave out, and the slump of the old man’s shoulders, only confirmed it.

“No. But Duke Richard has suggested that we should simply fail to serve you meals until an empty belly provides you sufficient motivation - or stop delivering you firewood. I would prefer not to do that, Millie. You are still my family, even after everything that has happened.”

“If I’m your family, then help me,” Millie urged him. “Give me my stormwand back. Call the barons. We can put those two traitor dukes to the sword, and once I’m on the throne, with an heir, no one will have anything to say.” Her eyes fell to his belt, where the length of god-bone rested in a leather sheath. It was hers by right - just like the crown of Lucania.

“You lost that chance,” the archmage said, and Millie was disappointed to see there wasn’t even a slight hesitation. He might talk about loyalty to his family, but it was clear he didn’t actually have any. “You should expect Eustace tomorrow, and the rest of the Temple delegation. I hope you have considered what you will say to him. And I hope that you reconsider making your abdication official; these visits with your son are a privilege - a privilege that can be revoked.”

The old man rose and crossed to the door; upon his knock, the stout, steel-banded oak slab slung open. Two armed guards waited in the hallway. Beyond them, Millie knew, was the spiralling stair that led down to freedom - but it might as well have been an ocean away.

“Send the nurse back in to fetch his majesty,” Caspian Loredan said. “We will be departing presently.” He re-entered just long enough to swing his cloak up off the chair and settle it on his shoulders. “I doubt we will be able to visit you tomorrow, Millie. The council is going to be quite busy.”

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“But you’ll send her with Lucan?” Millie asked, clutching the infant to her chest even after the nurse had entered the room, waiting for her.

Caspian hesitated. “So long as I have a good report of your cooperation from Eustace, yes,” he said.

It wasn’t much of a promise, but Millie knew that it was all she would get. She handed her son over, and shortly after she was alone again, and the bolts on the outside of the door had been thrown.

With a wordless cry of frustration, Millie launched herself up out of her chair, strode over to the windows, and threw the shutters open. If she had Aluth, if she’d joined the guild, she would have been able to fly out on a disc of mana. If she’d pestered her grandmother more urgently to learn Avi, she might have been able to learn the spell the old woman had used, and burst apart into a flock of birds, and escape that way. Even without a wand, the glass wouldn’t be enough to stop her. She could call a bolt of lightning down from the sky and...

Millie’s hand went to her wrist, and found the cuff of white mana-stone there. Set with a hinge and a lock, the entire thing was engraved with Vædic glyphs, all centered around the Mages Guild’s word of power - and it leeched all the mana out of her, storing it in the stone. Unlike any other mana stone jewelry, this one could only be emptied by her uncle.

They fed her plain food, with nothing from a rift; they’d taken her want that horrible day when the dukes and her uncle had burst into the royal palace months ago; and they wouldn’t allow her enough mana to cast a single spell. If there was a way to escape, Millie hadn’t found it yet.

Not that she’d tried so hard, while she was pregnant. So long as she’d carried Lucania’s next monarch in her womb, Millie had been confident that no one would do anything to harm her. Now, it seemed, that protection had vanished. So far as the council of regents were concerned, Lucan could be raised by nurses and governesses, tutors and knights.

An evening meal came, eventually, even though Millie had half expected that it might not. They were going to see how she behaved when the priests came, it seemed - give her a chance to cooperate before they began starving her. There was no one to brush her hair out for her, or to help her change for sleep. This ordeal in the Seastone Tower was the first time in her entire life that she’d had to do these things for herself.

There was little to do.

She was not allowed her spellbook, or anything that she could use to make notes, such as a quill pen or ink. Perhaps a stronger, more ruthless woman would have used her own blood to work out an escape spell on the wall - but not her.

Instead, they had given Millie histories. She could read about her ancestors, or the heroes who’d fought against the old gods, as much as she could ever desire. It was horribly dry, but with nothing better to do, she ended up tearing through each book anyway.

The most recent was an account of the decades-long work of hunting wyrm-nests across Isvara, when knights had put the great serpents down and broken their eggs. Only in the north, where the Eld had kept some to breed, and on the Isle of Wyrms, and of course far across the ocean in Varuna, had the great beasts of war been permitted to survive.

“Hello, child.”

The whisper caressed Millie like the softest Dakruiman silk, and she dropped her book into her lap, where it rested, nestled amongst the heavy blankets. With one hand, she pulled the curtains back so that she could scan the room.

Nothing.

Millie let the heavy fabric fall, settled back against her pillows, and then jerked, every muscle in her body stiff. At the foot of the bed lounged a dark-haired woman with the oddest facial features. She wore silk of deep, wine-red, which hardly did anything to conceal her generous curves. Millie had thought her own breasts grown enormous when they swelled with milk, and they’d made her back ache, but it was nothing compared to this stranger. The oddest thing, though, was her eyes: there was something just not quite right about the way those facial features came together, something not entirely human.

“You’ve prayed to me, daughter,” the dark-haired woman said, and her voice was a thousand voices, in more languages than could possibly exist in the world. “You can’t have forgotten so soon.”

Millie’s heart pounded, her pulse beat, so that she could hardly hear anything over the sounds. “Ractia?”

“Have you not begged for my aid, daughter?” the goddess asked, a gentle smile curving her lips. “Did you think that I had not heard you? That I was blind to your suffering? I’m not like those cold-hearted gods the rest of your people worship, who can turn their face and deafen their ears. You called for me, and here I am.”

Millie swallowed, her throat nearly too dry to speak. “Thank you. Thank you, Lady of Blood,” she murmured. Her eyes were drawn, against her will, in the direction of the door, where two guards waited outside the prison chambers. If they heard voices in conversation -

“I’ve wrapped their ears in magic,” the Vædic Lady assured Millie. “They will hear only what I permit them to. There is no need to concern yourself. We shall not be interrupted.”

“Can you - can you take me out of here?” Millie asked. “We’d need to get my son, but -”

“I can, and I will, when the time is right,” Ractia said. The goddess leaned forward and reached across the length of the bed, taking Millie’s hands in her own. Those hands were so delicate and soft, but Millie also felt a power coiled there, as if the Great Mother could, with the very slightest effort, grind bones between those elegant fingers.

“Tonight,” Millie begged. “They’re going to question me tomorrow. They want to burn me, Mother.”

“I know. You will tell them nothing, these weak priests,” Ractia said. “You will tell them that you refuse to answer their questions until they bring Livara tär Valtteri to witness your testimony.”

Millie shook her head. “They won’t do it,” she said. “They’ll starve me. Beat me. Take my firewood and leave me in the cold.”

“Then you must be strong,” Ractia told her. “You must hold fast until they finally see there is nothing to be done but to put that woman in the same room as you. And when that happens, you will give to her what I am about to give to you.”

“What?”

“A seed.” Ractia dropped Millie’s hands, then put her own palms together, cupped, as if she were going to lift a handful of water from a well. Wisps of red mist rose up from her skin, gathering together a few inches in the air, swirling as if they were being drawn into a single point. Veins of black followed, and sparkles of gold, and it all wound tighter and tighter together.

Finally, an orb, perhaps half an inch across, settled into Ractia’s open palms. It was striated, like a smoothed and polished rock, with the deepest red, with black, and with glittering gold. Ractia shifted her hands to roll it into her left palm, then plucked it up between the thumb and first finger of her right hand.

“Here. Swallow this,” she said, holding the ball out to Millie.

Millie hesitated. “What will it do?”

“It will wait, concealed within you,” Ractia said. “Until the moment you trigger it. The word is Veiketis - revenge. Speak it when she is in the same room as you, and my magic will do the rest. I will know when it is done, and I will come for you and your son. Kill that woman for me, and I will take you away to a safe place, where you can be together.”

The ball seemed, Millie thought, to pulse with power. She reached out and took it between her own fingers, and found it warm to the touch - nearly hot. With her left arm, she shoved aside the heavy drapes, and found the carafe of watered-wine on her bedside table. She poured herself half a goblet.

“You won’t let them hurt me?” Millie asked, meeting the eyes of the goddess.

“Never, my daughter,” Ractia said. “You must endure until the time comes to spring our trap. That woman has taken much from you, and much from me, and she must be disposed of. Once that is done, there is not a single person in this entire city who can stand against me. The moment that Livara tär Valtteri is dead, the moment she draws her last breath and her spirit goes into the great dark between spaces, I will be there with you. I will heal all of your wounds, and I will take you away to my gardens, with your darling boy.”

Millie nodded. She opened her mouth, and placed the warm orb on her tongue. Then, she set the goblet to her lips, and with a great mouthful of watered-wine, she swallowed.

The seed, as Ractia had called it, burned its way down her throat like a falling star, until it settled somewhere deep in her belly, like a secret, like a knife in the back.

Ractia was gone, as suddenly as she had come, but Millie settled back into her pillows with a smile. It was fitting - the bastard bitch had killed her husband, her sweet Bennet, and now she would return the favor. And once Liv Brodbeck was dead, everything would be right again.