Chapter one

Taia sighed and stretched her tired muscles. She was knee deep in mud, teaching the Heirs to fight in unfavorable weather conditions – and she was getting too old for this. A decade had passed since that war against the mage attempting a takeover of Ma'ar's dream of world domination and her muscles knew it, even if her mind didn't. These twins certainly knew how to show her, however, exactly how much she had aged in the last few years.

"Circle around, Lyra!" yelled Kris. "If we time this perfectly, we might just succeed!"

Over her dead body. Of course, that may very well be what happened, but she was not about to let a couple of teenagers best her. She was Taia, legendary warrior – oh, hellfires, they had her surrounded.

"Come on, Kris, we have her!" yelled Lyra. And to all appearances, they did. Lyra came up from the left side, where Taia had only a knife and Kris came from the right. Had it been a real battle, Taia would have had full swords in each hand; but very few fought in that style, so she was teaching them to fight mostly against what they would more likely encounter.

The twins were excellent students; mischievous, to be sure, but they took their studies seriously and put all their focus into learning whatever their teachers had to teach them. They would make excellent co-rulers one day, following in their mother Selenay's footsteps. Kris had been Chosen, and therefore was the primary heir as Valdemar law required the monarch also be a Herald. The Companions implied to the Heraldic Circle that Lyra's time would come, but the girl was understandably impatient. It was widely believed that Lyra would become the King's Own to her brother, but that required that she be Chosen by Rolan, who was currently the Companion to Talia, Queen's Own to their mother. And so Lyra would have to wait.

Taia defended herself adequately against Kris' attack, but only just managed to escape Lyra's; the two worked well together, using their Mindspeech to coordinate attacks. Had it been anyone but Taia, or maybe Kerowyn, it would have been an easy victory; it was Taia's goal to train them to be able to defeat even herself.

They were nearly there.

"Good job," she told them. "Excellent, in fact. Next time, I think you will succeed. Lyra, your attack was nearly perfect, but you need to guard your left side better. Kris, don't be so impatient; hold back a little bit and you won't give me so many opportunities to fight you off. Ok, everyone back to the salle; time to clean up and get some breakfast."

They did as Taia suggested. After cleaning up, the twins headed off to the Collegium kitchens and Taia sat down on a bench. She sighed. She brushed out her greying hair and rebraided it; she had a meeting to get ready for. That was her life – meetings, weapons' training, mage lessons. She sometimes found it hard to believe that she used to traipse about the countryside with an army, fighting the enemy and sleeping in tents; her Shin'a'in childhood or her time in k'Treva Vale seemed even less likely to have occurred to the person she was now. Instead of a sleeping roll on the floor of a tent she slept on a feather mattress inside the Palace Complex; instead of furs for blankets she had down-stuffed blankets and pillows. The only thing that reminded her that she was still the Shin'a'in nomad she was born to be was the herd of horses she didn't have time to train.

She sighed again and headed off to the kitchens herself; meeting or not, she needed something to eat or her grumbling stomach would be answering any questions the Council had for her instead of her voice. She grabbed a meat pocket pie and a mug of kava, eating as she walked. She gulped the kava down just outside the Council room door and handed the empty mug to a page and walked in. On the agenda for the day was continued discussion of the Eastern Empire; they had been knocking on the door threatening to attack for some time now. In between Valdemar and the Empire was their ally of Hardorn, but the effect was the same. If Hardorn was attacked, Valdemar was honor-bound to assist in their defense. Neither Valdemar or Hardorn were fully recovered from the previous war, having lost two-thirds of their armies to the mage; which was likely why the Empire was threatening attack in the first place.

"We need to let Hardorn stand or fall on its own," said the Councilmember from the south. "We don't have the army to defeat the Empire."

"That may be true," said the Councilmember from the east, "but neither does Hardorn. If we leave them to fight on their own, they'll be quickly overrun and then the Empire will come for us anyway. We have more of a chance if we fight together."

"We have no chance either way," said the Councilmember from the north. "We are defeated now with Hardorn, or later without – it's only a matter of time before we are all citizens of the Empire."

"Would that be such a bad thing?" said the Councilmember from the west. "We have seen how Tremane runs Hardorn, and he is from the Empire. It seems to run smoothly enough."

"But we would not be free," said Selenay. "And would we be allowed to maintain our traditions? Would we have one religion imposed on us? What would happen to the Heralds?"

"The fact is," said Taia, "We do not have the strength to resist the Empire. We simply do not. We cannot fight an all-out war with them and hope to survive, not with our collective armies at half-strength. We need another option."

"Says the mercenary captain who was so determined to defeat the mage army that was twice the size of the Empire, and did, in fact, defeat them," said Daren. "Are you so convinced we can't do the same here?"

"We had a full army against that mage," said Taia. "Plus we had the help of Rethwellan, Karse, Jkatha and even Iftel, not to mention the Clans and Vales and mercenaries. We have none of that, now. We also had no other option – that army was actively marching on us. The Empire is just skirmishing, testing the borders. We need to discuss other options."

"Such as?" pushed Daren.

:Assassination, for one: she Mindspoke. This was not the kind of thing you said out loud in a council meeting. :We might be able to at least stall them by assassinating their leader. But it would be difficult and dangerous to do so:

:Clearly: replied Daren. :But is it something we are even able to contemplate? We have difficulty maintaining an agent in their Court, how are we going to insert an assassin?:

:That is the part I need to work on: replied Taia.

"We should augment the border guards in Hardorn to help keep the skirmishes from becoming more than that," said Taia. "Bide our time, build the army as quickly as we can and hope it is enough."

:And find a way to get an assassin into their Court:

:Quickly.:

The meeting concluded. They all went about their daily business – the Councilmembers to whatever business deals they had to accomplish for the day, and Taia to her next class. Mage class, this time; beginners. She was teaching a batch of brand new mages how to shield. They were young, astonishingly young; or maybe it was just that she was getting old. She thought of her greying hair, which was really just an illusion itself; her hair in reality was pure white from decades of Adept-level magic. She kept up the illusion not out of vanity so much as she wanted to continue to appear Shin'a'in; her appearance was often the only thing she had left of her heritage, and even that wasn't real. It was also to cover the multitude of scars she had not just on her face, but over her entire body. She kept her hair greying because she wasn't vain, and she knew she was aging; greying hair was appropriate.

The shielding class was uneventful; the children – if she was honest with herself, they weren't children, they were young teenagers, but they made her feel old enough – were learning quickly. All except one boy, Juren, with a frighteningly powerful Thoughtsensing Gift; he was finding it very difficult to shield himself. He was growing more and more distressed by his inability to keep himself from 'hearing' the thoughts of others without the assistance of his Companion keeping him shielded, but Taia was certain that he would be able to learn. She thought she might need her lifebonded partner Whitestar to help, however; the boy did not seem to be responding to her efforts to teach him. He reminded her of her own childhood, before she learned to shield, having the feelings of her entire Clan in her head all the time; she knew exactly how this poor boy felt and wanted to get him taught as quickly as possible.

She met Whitestar for lunch in the cafeteria; she had learned early on that if she did not make it a point to take time for meals, she wouldn't get one. So she made sure that she never had any meetings or classes scheduled for lunchtime, and so did Whitestar; often, it was the only time they saw each other until they both returned to their room to sleep.

"I can certainly try to help teach young Juren," Whitestar said when Taia posed the question. "I'm sure he can learn, it's just going to take a lot of time."

"Good," said Taia. "I'll send him over to join your class tomorrow in place of mine; maybe he'll only need a few lessons."

"Let's hope," agreed Whitestar. "What was the decision in the Council?"

"Bide our time," said Taia. "Bolster the skirmishers on the border and try to keep them at just that while we work on a plan to get an assassin into their court."

"An assassin?" asked Whitestar. "Do we even have assassins?"

Taia gave Whitestar a wry look.

"Only a couple," she said. "Myself and Kerowyn. And I have a feeling I know which of us is easier to sneak across two borders – and it isn't the one with the white horse."

Whitestar groaned.

"We can't go traipsing across two borders ourselves," she said. "I mean, we're fairly recognizable as well – a Taleydras Healing Adept in a she'chorne pairing with a Shin'a'in warrior mage? How is that expected to work?"

"It's not like I've volunteered," said Taia. "They could yet decide to send someone else, maybe Skif even, but same problem with the distinctive white horse. We could even decide to train someone specifically for the purpose. But assassination – while not an ideal solution, it doesn't eliminate the Empire threat, it only postpones it – is our best bet at the moment."

"We sure don't have the army to defeat them," agreed Whitestar. "And we're unlikely to get the assistance of our allies, either. The last time, it was a threat to all of us, but the Empire shows no interest in Karse or Rethwellan. I'm afraid you're right."

"It's been awhile since we went traipsing around the world," said Taia. "Are we even sure we remember how?"

"I know I'm not going to enjoy leaving the comforts of Haven, that's for sure!" said Whitestar. "But I suppose if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. And better to have it done by mages, since the Empire uses so much magic. Alright, fine. When is this happening?"

"Slow down," said Taia. "It hasn't even been officially decided yet, I only just mentioned it to Daren – the council still thinks we're just going to continue the skirmishes. We may yet get out of it!"

They both laughed, but knew the likelihood of their escaping this responsibility were slim. Sometimes they wished they were not quite so talented. But the official decision was some time off yet, so they went about their days as ordinarily as possible. Weapons classes, mage classes, meetings, always more meetings, training the horses when there was even a spare candlemark to do so…..most of the time they were tended to by Jacqui, Taia's sister-in-law. Jacqui had been parther to Brandi, Taia's beloved older sister; but Brandi had been killed in the war. Jacqui had taken Taia up on her offer to come to Valdemar and not be surrounded by reminders of Brandi for awhile and had never left. Taia was grateful to have her there; it was nice to have a member of her family other than Whitestar nearby, and selfishly she was glad to have someone help with the horses. But sometimes she felt guilty that Jacqui was so often herself alone, and she wanted her to find someone again.

A moon passed. It was nearly winter; Taia did not do well in winter. A career full of joint injuries in battle, not to mention having had all her bones crushed by Mornelithe Falconsbane when she was held as his prisoner, had left her with severe arthritis. This year was no different, although she had worked out a plan with Jeri so that she would not have to teach classes in the snow. It was important for the students to learn to fight in the snow, but Taia herself just couldn't do it anymore; Jeri had taken over for Alberich shortly after the war and was perfectly capable of taking those classes while Taia stayed inside the heated salle.

She was certainly spoiled in this life. Far removed from the mercenary captain traipsing through all kinds of weather to fight the enemy, she spent her days in comfort. And now the Eastern Empire was likely going to make her leave the lap of luxury and go traipsing around again. She remembered feeling far-removed from her previous self and remembered the old Shin'a'in curse – may you live in interesting times.

Interesting times indeed.