Wren hung upside down from the rafters above the great hall at Falcon’s Roost, the immense castle of the Falkenraths. The voices of those at the high table, beneath her, echoed up into the darkness. Wren’s delicate ears twitched, angling toward the conversation, as she shut out the murmur of the knights at the lower tables.

“-take a carriage to the pass as soon as word comes it’s fallen,” Princess Milisant was nattering on. “I want to make certain I’m there in time to watch the traitors executed. So we need to be certain all of my things are packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Of course, Your Royal Highness,” one of the two ladies in waiting murmured. Evangeline Howe, by the conciliatory tone; Wren had learned that she was the older sister of the man in command of the crown forces - the princess’s new husband, Bennet. The same man who’d hung Obediah Cartwright in front of the crowd at Coral Bay.

“I was under the impression that Julianne and her family would be brought back to the capital for execution,” the other lady in waiting spoke up. Cecily Falkenrath - Wren hadn’t actually met her, despite the fact she’d been smuggled into the castle and hidden during her recuperation by those sworn to the Duchy. “Anyway, shouldn’t it be drawing-and-quartering? And burning, for the women?”

Princess Milisant laughed, and despite the gruesome character of the topic, she sounded genuinely amused. “There’s far too many traitors to spend that much time on all of them,” she declared. “Those of lower rank will be hung a dozen or more at a time, I’m certain. It will only depend on how large our engineers can build a gallows. But you’re correct that the real ring-leaders - Julianne and Henry and their family, the Crosbies - they’ll be paraded back to Freeport for everyone to see. If they’ve got a scrap of common sense, they’ll all make sure to die in battle - but of course, if they had any sense, they’d never have rebelled in the first place!”

“This is hardly a suitable conversation for the dinner table,” Thomas Falkenrath broke in. “Such talk - of executions and torture - turns the stomach. Now that the weather has well and truly turned, Your Highness, have you considered riding out with some of our falconers? I’m certain there will be plenty of hares coming up out of their winter burrows.”

“The princess should not be riding at all,” an old woman’s voice broke in. The dowager queen, and Milisant’s namesake. Wren understood the concept of using a name to honor an ancestor, but she personally thought it less confusing to wait until the person you were honoring was actually dead.

“In any event, you’ll all be leaving before we will, I’m certain,” Princess Milisant said, after a moment where the silence was only broken by the scrape of forks and knives on plates. “Have any birds come from the pass, yet, Granny?”

“Your husband’s last message was sent just before he reached the enemy,” the dowager queen said. “His intent was to march through the night, assemble his siege engines, and surprise the northerners with a dawn bombardment.”

It had begun, then. For a moment, Wren didn’t hear a single word that was spoken beneath her; instead, the sounds drifted through the air without meaning, mingling with the scent of woodsmoke from the hearths, and the aroma of roasted meat and spiced wine.

She hadn’t seen the wall the Summersets had built, but she could imagine it - like the one at Valegard, all mortared stone, with catapults and scorpions along the top, and archers waiting with their quivers. Wren saw it all, as clear as if she were really there: Liv was up on the wall, with Ghveris and Arjun and all the rest, the wall shaking as it was hit by boulders. They were already fighting, and she was stuck here, where she couldn’t do anything to help.

No, that wasn’t true. Wren shook her own wings. There was plenty she could accomplish in Courland, and she was the only one of her friends who could. If there were cultists of Ractia among the crown forces, she would find them.

“-that’s right, you were friends with Matthew Summerset, weren’t you, Thurston?” Millie asked brightly. Wren found the woman’s voice as painful as chalk scraping on slate; she would gladly have dropped from the ceiling right then and cut the princess’s throat out, just to never hear it again. “Did you ever get any hint he was a miserable traitor back then?”

The sound of a chair’s wooden legs scraping across stone echoed up. “Matthew Summerset was a good man when I knew him,” Thurston Falkenrath said, his voice tight as the string of a lute. “He was a good friend. I have no doubt that if he saw any other choice, he would not now be fighting the crown. Perhaps you should consider, Your Royal Highness, just what has occurred to push once-loyal servants of your father into open rebellion, and how things could have proceeded differently.”

“Surely, Lord Thurston, you are not implying that you have any sympathy for enemies of the crown?” the queen regent asked. Even Wren, who would never have called herself an expert in Lucanian politics, could hear the blade of a knife in the words.

“I mourn the friend I once knew,” Thurston said. “Surely that is no crime?”

“So long as you recall where your loyalty, and your duty, lies,” the old woman warned him.

“My son knows precisely what his duty is,” Duke Falkenrath broke in. “You may be assured of that.”

“Indeed. But I fear I have lost my appetite; I must bid you all good evening.”

Wren considered, for half a moment, following Thurston Falkenrath out of the great hall. But she already knew that he’d been Matthew’s contact, passing information along to Whitehill. As much as she was curious where the young man might storm off to, he wasn’t the one she was here to hunt.

Instead, she waited until Milisant and her grandmother retired for the evening, followed by Cecily Falkenrath and Evangeline Howe, and fluttered after them. For all the time Wren had spent listening to the Sherard troops in their encampment, she’d yet to overhear any mention of the Great Mother, or to catch anyone sneaking off to make a blood sacrifice.

Milicent Loredan had, however, been born a Sherard. And in the event Wren found no trace of cults nosing about the queen dowager’s affairs, there was at least more of a chance she overheard something useful. She followed the two women back to their rooms - or, more specifically, to the older woman’s guest chambers, where the two ladies in waiting were summarily dismissed. She was just able to flit in the open door above their heads and tuck herself into a shadowed corner, where two walls met the ceiling, and there she hid, wings tucked to make herself as small as possible.

“I don’t trust Thurston Falkenrath,” Princess Milisant said, the moment the door was closed. “He practically just spoke in support of a traitor.” She settled herself down in a cushioned chair, resting one hand over her belly.

“Don’t concern yourself with it,” the older woman said, bringing over a cup of tea from a pot that had been waiting for them when they entered. “And drink this. The herbs are good for the child.”

Milisant accepted the cup of tea, and sipped from it. Wren caught a glimpse of the way her mouth pursed and her nose wrinkled, and could only imagine the horrid taste. Good. Foul-tea was only the first part of what the royal brat deserved.

“We can’t have people speaking well of traitors,” the princess insisted, setting the cup aside. “That risks spreading sympathy for them.”

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The dowager queen sat down on a facing couch with a sigh. “And I told you, don’t concern yourself with it,” she repeated. “You have precisely one duty right now, and it is to see that the heir in your belly is born safely. Which, I shall remind you, would be best done at the palace in Freeport, where you would be more comfortable. Nothing can be permitted to upset you, or to jeopardize the child.”

The princess huffed. “I’m perfectly safe here, Grannie,” she insisted. “In any event, it isn’t as if we need to worry. The Great-”

“Hush!” The dowager queen sat up, and cast about the room; if she’d said anything else at that moment, Wren wasn’t certain that she would have been able to hear it over the sound of her own pounding heart. The great what? The Great Mother?

“Say nothing more without wards in place, you foolish girl,” the old woman scolded, rising from her couch and bustling about the room. She crouched down right where the floor met the wall, and Wren saw for the first time the faintest trace of ground, white stone powder set into the crevice. The dowager queen lifted a corner of carpet, pressed her palm to the chalked sigil revealed there, and then a streak of blue mana encircled the room.

There was no time to flee, and no way out even if there had been. Wren could only pray - though she no longer knew to what god - that the ward was constructed in such a way that it would only affect someone passing through it, and no one on the inside.

“There,” the old woman said. “No one outside this chamber should be able to hear us now - but keep your voice down, in any event.”

“My understanding was that our prayers would keep my child safe, and assure a healthy birth,” Milisant said, her voice lower now.

“Yes, but it does not do to borrow trouble when so much depends on you,” the old woman shot back. “Aid the goddess along, do not throw troubles in her path. It is ungrateful. A kind of arrogance, and the gods - old or new - do not appreciate arrogance.”

The princess looked, from the expression on her face, if not actually frightened, then at least properly chastised. “Should we offer her another prayer, then?” Milisant asked. “As a sort of apology?”

“You were born to vex me, child,” the older woman grumbled. “Do nothing so long as we are here as guests of the Falkenraths. The last thing we need is to raise their suspicions. Now. You should return to your rooms, and rest. Carrying a child is hard work, and you need your sleep.”

The princess rose from her couch, and her grandmother swiped a finger through the crevice between the stones of the floor and the wall, breaking the ward. The moment the door to the chamber was open, Wren fluttered out into the hall as quietly as she could. Rather than follow Milisant back to her chambers, she turned in the other direction to make her escape.

Now that most of the barons had departed, she had her pick of empty guest rooms. The cleaning staff kept the doors shut and locked, for the most part - but they were also working their way through every chamber that had been used, giving each a thorough cleaning. This evening, she’d come in by way of the open windows in the bedchamber last used by Kerlin Ward, and she was relieved to find the maids were still airing the room out.

Once Wren was out of the castle and into the night sky, she caught the evening breeze under her wings and banked in the direction of the manor belonging to Sir Elias Lane. It was a modest building, as such things went; Wren could see grander dwellings all along the same street, but that still put the home quite a ways above the dwellings of the craftsmen and shopkeepers throughout the rest of Courland.

Here, a particular window had been left open, just for her.

It led to a dark sitting room, where no guest was supposed to be. Once she’d taken her human form again, Wren closed it behind her, to shut out the chill. She listened at the door to the corridor, cracked it to glimpse out, and then slipped into the hall. As far as the household servants were concerned, the Lane family was not hosting any guests. They were all, from cooks and scullions to maids, supposedly loyal, but neither Wren nor her hosts saw any point in taking unnecessary risks.

When she reached the door to Sir Lane’s solar, Wren gave a quick rap of her knuckles on the wood, and then stepped back to wait. The door opened a moment later, and Tephania stepped out, glancing quickly up and down the corridor before she hustled Wren inside. Only once the door was closed again, and barred, did they sit down and speak.

“You’re back before my father,” Teph observed.

“I expect the drinking will go on for quite a while yet,” Wren commented, and flung herself down into one of the cushioned seats. “Her royal wickedness got into it with your man Thurston.”

Tephania winced. “Not too badly, I hope?”

“Bad enough,” Wren said. “He spoke up in Matthew’s defense in front of everyone, and then left early. But, that’s not the important part. I followed the princess and the dowager queen when they left the great hall. Did you know the old woman’s got a ward set up in her sitting room?”

“Really?” Teph shook her head. “No. That’s quite an insult to a host, actually. Very rude, not done at all. I honestly can’t even imagine what sort of ward the Sherard’s would use - something to turn away birds? How would that help anyone? Unless she’s using the royal word of power...”

Wren leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I don’t know, but I was already in the room by the time she activated it. She didn’t want anyone to hear her granddaughter - even interrupted the princess before she could finish what she was saying. ‘The Great’ something. And then they talked about how Milisant wasn’t worried about her baby, because the goddess would see to it the child was born. It sounds almost identical to what I heard Ractia’s blood-letters spout for years.”

“Wait,” Tephania said. “You said there might be a cult in Sherard lands, not that the royal family was involved.”

“The Great Mother, that’s what I think she was about to say,” Wren pressed on. “And the dowager was born into the Sherards, wasn’t she?”

“I could picture Merek being involved,” Teph said. “He’s a nasty piece of work. That wouldn’t have surprised me. But now you’re talking about the most powerful people in the entire kingdom. They’d hang us all and burn this house if they heard even a whisper of what you’re saying.”

“Teph, you’re already hiding an enemy spy in your house,” Wren pointed out. “You snuck proof of your young lord’s treason out of the duchy and handed it over to the Eld, who are allied with Whitehill. You’ve long since passed the point where they’ll kill you if they find out.”

“I - I suppose I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Tephania admitted. “We were just trying to keep Lord Thurston out of trouble.”

“Is this enough?” Wren asked. “Get me a meeting with him. Bring him out here, and let me tell him what I’ve found.”

Tephania raised her hands to her eyes, and pressed the heels of her palms in, as if trying to ease a headache. “No,” she said, finally, and dropped her hands again. “It isn’t enough yet. There’s no actual proof, Wren.”

“They can find the mana stone dust in her rooms,” Wren pointed out. “That she’s got a ward up there. Blood and shadows, someone who knows their Vædic can pull the carpet up and figure out what it does - what word it uses.”

“Warding her rooms is rude, it's an insult, not a crime,” Tephania argued. “Duke Falkenrath would be well within his rights to be angry, and then she’d apologize and maybe offer him some sort of concession, and he’d have to accept it and let her save face. She’s the dowager queen.”

Wren leaned back, and let out an exasperated groan of frustration. “And my word’s still meaningless.”

“You said it yourself,” Teph pointed out. “You’re a spy in service to traitors. Your word is worth - well, less than nothing. We need proof. Find a, I don’t know, a statue of Ractia in her bags or something.”

For a moment, both women leaned back in their chairs, staring at the ceiling.

“If they’re relying on Ractia to be certain the princess has a healthy child, that means they’ll be offering prayers to her,” Wren said, after a moment. “That’s what we need.”

“What, you want to catch them in the midst of it?” Tephania sat back up, and swept an errant strand of blonde hair behind one ear. “If you can find where they pray, that might work, but there’d have to be enough warning. My father could lead Duke Thomas there, and he could see for himself...”

Wren shook her head. “No, there’s too much that could go wrong. They could hear him coming, and run. Or just change the name - make it a prayer to Sitia instead of Ractia. And we’d only get one chance. Unless we brought him through the door right as the old woman’s bleeding an animal out into a chalice, they could talk their way out of it.”

“An animal?" Tephania leaned forward and caught Wren’s hand in her own. “They’d actually do that - even here, where they could be found out?”

“Ractia’s the Lady of Blood,” Wren said. “If you’re going to pray to her, you need to make a sacrifice. I can’t see either of those two opening up their own veins, can you?”

“No,” Teph said, and a smile bloomed on her face. “Which means they’d use animals. That’s exactly what we need, Wren - we need to find the corpse of one of their sacrifices, after they’d disposed of it.”

“That won’t prove anything,” Wren pointed out. “They’ll talk their way out of that, too.”

Teph shook her head. “No, they won’t. The Falkenrath word of power is the word of death, Wren. Nec. Give them the corpse, and they’ll be able to see just how it died.”