Their procession, small as it was, began at Salt’s Mane. It began with them waiting on Rose, whose squad was not letting her depart without many hugs, promises of letters, and the re-pinning of the heroic medal she’d misplaced which they had graciously re-found for her. She would wear it, wouldn’t she? To remember them?

The princess’ cheeks were flushed as she returned their affections. It seemed she’d discovered the true gift of friendship: embarrassment. Poor Lochlann was trapped in this endless goodbye as well, taking to the hugs about as well as a tree to the axe.

Aaron waited back with the others, holding Seventh Down’s reins, putting off the moment he had to give up his own perfectly good feet. He had offered to let Lochlann continue borrowing the animal; Aaron was perfectly happy to keep pace with the party in his deer skin. This generosity had been outright refused, and the cloak nearly confiscated for his troubles. His sister was mounted next to him, idly scratching at the neck of her black-scaled mount. On her other side, the Lady stood next to Shenanigans, feeding the horse tidbits stolen from their breakfast spread. Rose finally broke free, and stomped over to join them; Aaron offered her the reins to her own borrowed horse.

They’d a few militia members with them, of course. Adelaide’s people. Them and Lochlann aside, this trip had the air of a family affair. And what a lovely little family they were: each related to two of the others—as mother or daughter, sister or cousin—but not the last. Like a fracture line winding through them; a thread ready to pull. The king awaited their company.

“Any bad feelings?” Lochlann asked, when finally he’d secured his retreat.

“Lieutenant Varghese,” Aaron asked, “was that a joke?”

It was actually quite hard to tell whether the man’s flat expression was due to a lack of amusement, or a surplus.

“No, actually,” Aaron said, turning his gaze back to the rest of their party. And the singular Death riding with them. “I’ve a fairly good feeling about all this.”

The Lady’s Death rode just behind her, side-saddle in a blue dress unfit for the road. It was, however, her favorite inside of castles. Aaron looked forward to seeing her wear it again.

* * *

As she did, the night they arrived in the Held Lands.

The Lord Protector’s greeting was short and awkward; dinner, even more so. But a final meal was considered polite, for these sorts of proceedings. How does a court greet the party that’s come to poison their king? Mostly by ignoring His Majesty, and being ignored in turn. Until dinner ended, and the night’s main event was upon them. No need to dawdle.

“Lady Sung.” King Orin stood, and nodded to the Lady. And, with a trace of humor, to her daughter. “Lady Sung. If you would attend me.”

They left, to the complete silence of the dinning hall. Aaron assumed his own invitation to the event. As did Rose. Jeshrinkra peeled off from the other guards in the hall to join His Majesty’s side; Lochlann did much the same for the princess, though his own seat had started at the head table rather than a lower position.

No one else followed. They already had more with them than Orin had meant to invite.

“I do not wish you to see this,” the king said, to his sister. They stood outside the doors of his room; Jeshinkra had already taken up her post there.

“You invited me here,” Rose said.

“Not for this.”

The princess watched them close the door on her, with fists clenched at her side. Aaron suspected she would have much to say on the matter once her anger had lessened from unspeakable to merely shoutable.

For tonight, though, it was only them. The king, his poisoner, and the witness. And Aaron, who might have been counted a friend, if he weren’t helping the Lady prepare the mixture His Majesty was to take. Aaron had been the one to carry the ingredients from her rooms in Onekin, after all.

He was well acquainted with where she kept such things.

His Majesty was to be given nine doses over nine days. Nine, the number of longevity and luck.

“Or suffering,” his sister had informed him, during one of their conversations on the road. “It depends on the language, down in Three Havens.”

“...There’s more than one?” Aaron had asked, and she’d smiled.

“A fair few more. One King is named for its ruler. What did you think Three Havens was named for?”

Here and now, Adelaide had other questions.

“Were you born a dragon, or have you since become one’s doppel?” she said, and proceeded to echo the questions they’d once asked of other suspected dragons, down in the cells under Salt’s Mane.

As His Majesty didn’t know the truth, they proceeded past this formality to the poisoning itself. The Lady had finished dividing the mixture across different packets, like the doses a hedge wife would give. She gave eight of them into Adelaide’s keeping. Then she and Aaron answered their own questions: what ingredients they had used, and in what measures; what effect they would have; what they could expect to see, if King Orin were or were not a doppel. The dead kirin at her hip had no power over the Lady’s tongue. But Aaron knew enough of such things from an old raccoon to know that he, at least, wasn’t lying.

Nine doses over nine days, so that Orin stood a chance of surviving them. Whether he survived as human or not was between him and a dragon a year past, on a cliffside ledge with flowers blooming.

If he were human, he’d be pushed to the brink of death. But such small doses would be nothing to dragon’s immense form. The body would do what it needed to save itself, even if it lost him his crown and his life.

The Lady poured the first packet into His Majesty’s drink of choice. It was an extremely familiar sight.

Orin raised the glass to his lips, and paused. “Is this the poison you used for my father?”

No one said anything, as the Lady looked around at present company, and found none of them surprised.

“His was a gentler blend,” she said. “I’ve a letter from him that might interest you. At the castle.”

The castle His Majesty might never see again.

“I’ve read it,” Orin said, and did not look at Aaron. He continued asking his questions, over kirin’s bone that did not sway her. “What are your plans for my kingdom?”

“For anything hunting us to find teeth in wait.”

“Not to save us all?”

She slanted a smile. “We guard humanity’s soul, not its flesh. A few deaths are to be expected at a wake.”

“How many kings do you mean to outlive?” he asked.

Whether it was rhetorical or not, she treated it as such.

“Your father was dying a slow, painful, pointless death,” she said, and there was no doubt which of the three she found most abhorrent. “Together we chose his end. He wanted you to have a chance.”

“An act befitting of the Late Wake’s loyalty,” His Majesty said. And then he tipped back his poison, drank, and set the glass back down with the final sound of glass on wood. “You’re all dismissed.”

Aaron stayed after the others had left. His Majesty stood rather pointedly between Aaron and his favorite sprawling spot.

“You are all dismissed, Aaron.”

“I know,” Aaron said. “Just dropping off your mail. Connor wrote you a letter for each day.”

He handed over the little stack, and watched His Majesty count: one, two, three.

Eight, nine. Ten.

One for every day, and for the day after.

“He expects a response for each, of course,” Aaron said. “He was very insistent on that point.”

“Of course,” the king said, and there was something in the set of his shoulders that was not quite so ready to shove people away. “Would you wait outside? I’ll have my first response shortly.”

“I’m not leaving until this is over,” Aaron reminded him.

“Are you my messenger, or aren’t you?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Aaron said. And went out the door, where Orin would know that someone stood waiting for him while the first dose began its work.

He wasn’t sure if they were friends, exactly. Not given his role here. But he could do this, at least.

Jeshinkra was still standing guard on the door. His Majesty did not call her inside.

There was an alcove at the end of the hall, far enough to not be overheard. The Lady sat in its window seat, the waxing moon framed through the arrow slit behind her, petting the calico cat that dozed there. Her Death sat on the seat’s other side, doing much the same. Their strokes alternated over its fur. Aaron watched their fingers almost touch, again and again. They were wearing the same dress.

“I had a few more of those pastries,” Aaron said, fishing their cloth out of his pocket pantry. “Might be a bit staler than the last batch, but I noticed you didn’t get any, that last time.”

“Thank you, Aaron,” she said, accepting the little bundle and unwrapping it. The calico cat sniffed at its contents, but didn’t attempt to partake. The Lady watched it, tracing fingers around a white patch between its ears.

“Why did you trust me at the meeting?” Aaron asked, leaning against the wall beside her.

“I like to trust people and see what comes of it. It’s always interesting, at the least. Speaking of.” She held the little pastries out to him, the cloth on her palm.

“They’re for you.”

“I’m aware,” she said, holding his gaze. “Aaron. Do be more subtle.”

What a shame it would have been, for her to have mixed all that poison, then not washed her hands before eating. Very foolish. Or perhaps one of those same people pushing for the king’s death had taken some initiative, with regards to hers; the Late Wake was hardly well-loved, and some treachery to be expected in such fraught times as these. Any enclaver could be blamed for the deed, as well, as John had amply proved that time he’d tried to shoot her with a crossbow in the wake of the four-tails’ attack, with all the castle’s militia there to see but only Aaron to notice. There’d be little reason to suspect the woman’s grieving apprentice.

She re-wrapped the bundle and disappeared it into her own pocket, uneaten. She did not wait for his reply; just stood to leave, patting his shoulder in passing.

Aaron sat very still in her wake. Even stiller, when another hand dropped on him, from the only other figure present.

“Though be aware,” the Lady’s Death said, her lips rather close to his ear, “that once the time for subtlety is past, there will be no use in delaying. And what fun we shall all have then.”

The Death patted him on the back, then returned to her seat. The calico obligingly rolled her white belly up for scritches, her paws readied to spring their trap at a whim.

His Majesty emerged a moment later, a letter in hand. It seemed a timely reason to retreat.