A/N: This is a Cat/Akua fic, with a bit of Cat/Vivienne and Cat/Indrani thrown into the mix. The story takes place after Book 3 and mostly follows canon events for the first half, but will diverge later on. There is a lot of implied F/F sex. Nothing explicit, but it's rated M for a reason.

Chapter One: Rule of Three

The queen's bedroom lay at the top of the castle. Ostensibly, it belonged to me, but I had never quite been able to call it mine. Something about all the silk and oak furniture and the sheer sizeof it, larger than the entire west wing of my old orphanage, never made me comfortable. Indrani often decried our lack of opulence for a team of supposed villains, and she had a point, but the only one of us who'd been born a noble now rubbed shoulders with thieves and smugglers in the slums. All of us, I think, felt more comfortable sleeping in a tent than a palace.

Not that I needed sleep any more. Throwing the Mantle of Woe against the bed, I shrugged off my armor – most improper attire for a queen, but I had made it clear to Kendall I would not be wearing dresses – and sank into my chair. The day had been long. We had received news that the Proceran army had finally breached the Whitecaps and began their march on Harrow. My war council had erupted at the news. Juniper was adamant we could defend Harrow, but I had pushed to abandon the city. Even a victory would leave our army crippled for the rest of the Crusade, and with a Hell Egg so close I was even less inclined to risk a battle. The Callowan officials had not taken the news well. Talbot and his Regals had pestered me endlessly to reconsider, and they would still be knocking on my doors had I not made it clear that the next fool who questioned my decision would be sent to the gallows.

Queenship, I thought bitterly. Gods, to think people actually wanted this job.

But those were the troubles of the day, and though I no longer needed sleep I still needed a break. I warmed my hands by the fire, more out of habit than need. There were a few hours left until dawn.

"I grant you leash. I grant you eyes and ears, tongue and feet, at my sufferance."

The shade of Akua Sahelian rose from my bed. She wore the same clothes I killed her in, the same tight dress of red and gold, and I glimpsed my bookcase through that same hole in her chest. I felt her soul as a prick on the edge of consciousness, like a cut on your hand you didn't notice until you looked at it. She would be a part of me forever now, but that was a price I had paid willingly.

"Good evening, my love," she said, bowing deeper than she had to, and her dress was cut low. "What will it be tonight? The Age of Wonders? The Secret Histories? Terribilis the First?"

"Sorcerous."

"Ah, the last Tyrant to wage war against Procer. You have a deeper meaning here, I imagine."

"If I wanted to hear someone guess my intentions, I'd wake up Talbot," I snapped. For a shade with no more power than a puff of air, she was entirely too smug.

Laughing, Akua began to speak. Her voice was deep and musical and precise in its enunciation, crafted, like every other part of her, to be perfect. She spoke of Sorcerous's rise to power, his establishment of the first Mage's College, his experiments in necromancy, and finally his ill-waged war against Procer that lead to his downfall. I leaned back in my chair, eyes closed, letting the story wash over me – and it was as much a story as the books I used to hide beneath my pillow in the orphanage. Akua was a born orator, and she lectured me with the same eloquence she had used to politick the death of her enemies. Her upbringing had familiarized her with every Tyrant since the Miezan Occupation. A not unnatural leaning, for someone who once – and very likely still – aimed for that same throne.

I had struggled with what to do with Akua's soul. The safest thing would be to lock it in a safe and throw it in the Tyrian Sea, but that would've defeated the entire purpose of my claiming it. As much as I despised Akua, she was too useful to kill. I had found a use for her during my talks with Cordelia Hasenbach, but I was reluctant to let Akua in on too much of what was going on. To the Diabolist, knowledge was as much a weapon as magic. In the end, I contented to learn from her. Akua was a natural teacher and a wealth of information on all things Praesi, even if she was insufferably proud of the Empire's atrocities. Furthermore, although I was allied with Praes now, I was under no illusion that would last.

"When the last and greatest of the flying fortresses fell over Brabant, Sorcerous grew more enraged. He ordered fifty thousand executions to raise another undead army, but by then the war had dragged for two decades with nothing to show for it but empty coffers. The Chancellor brought Sorcerous to the execution grounds where the condemned awaited, and as the necromancy ritual began, he slit Sorcerous's throat. And so the greatest mage in five hundred years, surrounded by wards at the seat of his power, died by a knife at the hands of a man who couldn't tell apart a ghost from a wight. Now, my love, what have you learned from this story?"

Torches crackled on the walls, and down the hall my guards shifted noisily in their armor. Akua sat in front of me on a chair made from nothing, wearing the patient expression of a teacher with a loved but slow-witted pupil. The dim light made living shadows of her hair and brought to relief the high set of her cheekbones, and I wondered if her transition to shade had not granted her a degree of freedom over her appearance, more malleable for all her transience, because I didn't remember her looking this beautiful when I tore out her heart.

"The invasion dragged on. It started well, and if Sorcerous drove the momentum for all it was worth, he might've crushed Procer in a single overwhelming strike. But he dawdled, and the First Prince gathered the country beneath his banner. After that, Sorcerous never won another victory."

"I give that answer half-credit. As always, you dwell too much on trivialities. Sorcerous's mistake was spending all his attention on war. He let the Court have too much leeway, and so sealed his own doom. The lesson here is that though they may be your allies, you must be even more ruthless to them than your enemies."

"You know, I can't help but feel we're taking away different lessons from this."

She smiled, dark and secretive.

"Such is the difference between a queen and a warlord, and it is the former that forges history."

Faking a yawn, Akua arched back in a way that thrust her chest forward, as if a shade could get kinks. She slinked behind me, resting one hand on my shoulder. The entire weight of her matched less than that of a feather. Bending down, she spoke softly into my ear, "You seem tense, my love. Even if you do not want my advice, there are…other ways I can serve you."

Her hand grabbed her throat. She gave a strangled cry. "I meant no disrespect – " she said, and tore out her own throat. Even as the blood evaporated into whatever realm shades dwelt, the wound had already healed.

"Back in the box, Diabolist. "

She vanished like a thought, and for a long time, I watched the fire.

The nightingales had come out by the time I closed the book. Chronicles of Levantine, Vol. 3. For a country that was only a couple of hundred years old, Levant had more history than it had any right to. More than ever I missed my Learn aspect. If I ever got another Name, screw sharpened senses or fancy sword skills or regeneration – I'd settle for something that made chores less dull. I crept deeper into my blankets, pretending, for a moment, that I was asleep. The body may not have needed sleep, but a mind, I thought, was not made to churn relentlessly without pause. Every time I was alone, the weight of my mistakes – Liesse and Arcadia and William and a thousand more – bore down, and there were no dreams to escape to. Rest was a luxury even peasants took, but which queens could not afford.

It was two o'clock, which meant the night was still young.

"I grant you leash. I grant you eyes and ears, tongue and feet, at my sufferance."

Akua appeared from the Mantle hanging off the coathook. Her eyes searched the room before landing on the pile of blankets on my bed.

"Is that you under there, Catherine? If you're not wearing clothes, don't worry. I don't mind."

I thought about making her tear out her throat again, but it didn't seem worth the effort. She laid down next to me, and I felt her presence more as a blip in my web of senses than any true physical proximity. Realms, after all, could not be judged by distance. She could be right next to me and still be further away than the other side of the ocean. More than once I had wondered what she did to pass the time trapped in my cloak.

"It's been a few days, my love. Busy lately?"

"As much as I enjoy your history lessons, I have more pressing matters. Like a godsdamned Crusade. What do you know about the Grey Pilgrim?"

Her confusion rippled faintly. "The Levantine Hero? That's a bit beyond my scope. Praes hasn't so much as glanced at Levant in decades."

I figured as much. For all her education, Akua's knowledge was narrow. If it didn't involve summoning demons or invading something or a Tyrant getting backstabbed, she knew as much as your average Callowan schoolmarm. I debated how much to tell her. No doubt it would bite me later on. Akua would burn down the house if you gave her so much as a speck of sulfur. But I couldn't afford to sidestep future dangers when the Crusade loomed so close.

I told Akua what Vivienne had told me earlier: that fourteen heroes had joined the Crusade, which was fourteen too many, among them the Grey Pilgrim and the equally mysterious Saint of Swords. Of the Saint, there was little information; her only achievement had been killing a prince before disappearing for forty years. The Grey Pilgrim concerned me. He was a legend and a nobody. He was everywhere and nowhere. He appeared in almost every chapter of Chronicles of Levant, but there was nothing concrete to go on. He gave advice to kings as easily as alms to the poor, appearing at times to stop a war, at other times to start one. He was some sort of wandering priest, that much I gathered, but what his skills or goals were I had no idea. The Levantines saw him as a demigod. Of second-hand accounts, I would never run out: he had stopped a tsunami, he had returned the dead to life, he had cradled a star in his palms.

"If he was capable of all that, he would've wiped out Evil years ago," Akua said. "Commoners are always easily swayed by legends. Give them no thought."

"First-hand accounts put him at over a hundred years old. Heroes aren't supposed to live that long."

"Think about it from another perspective. You said he was the reason Levant joined the Crusade. You do not need to defeat forty thousand Levantines, then – just one man. And once Levant is out of the war, the rest will fall apart like a stack of dominos. Nobody is without weakness, and you have a delicious appetite for seeking those out."

Something shifted; Akua had crept behind me under the blankets. I tensed, but did not tell her to go. Her words held a certain promise. Levant's relations with Procer mirrored that of Callow with Praes, if not worse. Procer had occupied Levant for two hundred years before being driven out by the founding heroes. It had been centuries ago, but histories were not forgotten easily, and wasn't that just the perfect oath for Calernia? I did not even need to beat the Grey Pilgrim. If I could drive a wedge between him and Procer, it would split would the Crusade from within.

"You seem like you have a plan, my love."

"Occasionally, you say some things that make me glad I didn't crush your soul along with that blasted fortress."

"A gift most appreciated," Akua murmured. "You spared my life when you could've killed me, when all your allies howled for my death. Mercy is a gift Praesi do not accept lightly."

For a while we lay in silence, and it was almost pleasant to have a mass murderer next to me. Her fingers stroked my hair. I wore only a thin undershirt. This was the closest we'd ever been save that time I was literally arm-deep in her chest. I should've dismissed her – I had no more use for her, I had gotten all I wanted, there was no point in keeping her around, anything she learned could only be detrimental further down the line. She inched closer, breasts pushing into my back. A dare. I could destroy her with an ounce of exertion of will. Her breaths fluttered on the nape of my neck, as if shades needed to breath. One hand traced the hollow of my throat. The other lingered on my ear. She kissed my jaw.

A violent tempest of will, like cracking a finger with a warhammer. I caught a glimpse of her face, more amused than disappointed, and she was whisked away back into the cloak.

A long shudder ran through me. I knew that even if I did need sleep, I would not get any of it tonight.

We came down on the Procerans like a blizzard. Fae laughter cackling in the night, the riders of the Hunt stormed through soldiers still sleeping in their tents, and it was as much a slaughter as any I'd ever seen. And I, too, was laughing. These fools dared invade my kingdom under the guise of Good? The fae rode towards the officers' tents while I held back the heroes, and it seemed like the first battle of the Crusade's western theater would end before it ever began.

Until the Sword Saint showed up.

I got annihilated. I didn't have so much pride that I wouldn't admit it. All the might of Winter behind me in the prime of my youth, and I got kicked around like a puppy by an old woman waving a stick. I couldn't even blame the Heavens; whatever Laurence de Montfort had done to get so powerful, she did it, I think, through her own strength. In the end, however, Operation Headhunt ended in victory. After all, one-on-one duels were what stupid – and dead – heroes did. The minute the last of the markers vanished above the officers' tents, the Hunt and I retreated back to Arcadia, leaving behind a score of dead Procerans and some very pissed-off Heroes.

I ran a hand along my arm. It had bruised during my fight with the Saint of Swords, but there was no trace of it now. Masego had said she had cut a part of Winter itself.

For a moment, I had been mortal.

Almost without thought, I called out Akua. It happened more and more frequently now, our little chats. She stepped into the tent as if she were an invitee at a ball and not a meddlesome spirit I called on when I felt like it. Tonight she wore a dark blue dress that left one leg bare, and she had done something with her hair so it cascaded down her back in ringlets. Really, she had too much time in my cloak.

"Good evening, my love – you're hurt!"

Horror painted across her face, almost believable. I shoved off her embrace. The fake concern was so ostentatious as to be insulting. I didn't ask how she knew I'd been hurt, just as she didn't ask me how I had been hurt. We treasured our silences, she and I. Like a worried widow, she clasped my arm to her chest, right over the hollow where her heart used to be, and the way my fingers brushed against her breasts was too calculated to be natural. Ever since that night she crept into my bed, she had gotten more brazen with her intimacy. The fault was mine, I knew. I should've been sterner. I should've laid clear the line between us: queen and servant, slave and master. Against one who held absolute power over another, there could be no other relationship. But as she rested her head on my shoulder in the wake of a slaughter that would make Tyrants envious, it was pleasant to imagine she cared.

"What'll it be tonight? Shall we pick up the story of Terribilis II?"

"Tell me about Liesse."

Her face went blank, the closest to surprise that slipped between her facades. We rarely talked about Liesse. There was little to talk about. More than anyone else in the world, we understood what had happened in the halls of that flying fortress. The subject was always understood and occasionally danced around, and the fact she was a shade living by my whim communicated more than words ever could.

(It helped, of course, that whenever she brought it up, I made her swallow her tongue.)

"I didn't take you to be interested in Trismegistan sorcery."

"Tell me what you wanted. What your goal was, what you felt was worth killing a city."

"You know it as well as I do."

"I need to hear it from your mouth."

"Did I need a reason?" Akua spoke with relish, and I fought the urge to throttle her. "Does anyone need a reason to crush another underfoot? I would've claimed the Tower, as is the birthright of every Praesi, and I would've ushered a new Age of Wonders, and our conquest would've toppled the world. But those are excuses, excuses. There has only ever been one truth in the world. Power. The pursuit of it is its own reward. I destroyed Liesse because I was stronger than Liesse, and you destroyed me because you were stronger than me. You see the consequences of my madness. Even now parents tell stories of it to scare their children. In a hundred years the word Liesse will be a curse. I turned the city from a footnote into the greatest atrocity of our age. And even in defeat, there was glory."

She bared her pride like a blade. Though I already knew all that she had said, her words comforted me in my fear. Her eyes danced triumphantly. She expected me to make her tear out her throat. I understood her a bit better now, I think. All those times she had spoken of her experiment as if it had been a game, making light of a hundred thousand corpses, angering me just enough to torture her – it had been on purpose. She relished in making me hurt. It was a reminder she still had power. For the Praesi, there was only one sin worse than defeat: to be forgotten.

"We had a great victory today," I said.

"I'm glad, my love."

"I rode with the Hunt into the enemy camp, and we slaughtered almost the entirety of their officers. Most were still sleeping. We killed them in their beds. During the chaos, Thief emptied their stores. Now they have to march on Hedges or starve. When they reach us, they will be exhausted, hungry, their chain of command broken. Their fifty thousand will break on our fortifications like rats into a wolf's jaws, and if they defeat us it will only be by choking us with their corpses."

"There's no need to feel guilty," Akua said, already sensing where I was headed. "These people are invading your homeland. They'd do the same to you without a second thought."

"During my battle with the Saint of Swords, she cut away part of Winter. For a moment, I lost my alienation. And what I saw terrified me. I was murdering tens of thousands, and my only concern was that I couldn't do it more efficiently. It was like waking up. But the moment passed. Winter healed, as it always did, and I no longer felt horror. But the fear remained. How much of me is me, and how much of it is Winter? And the scariest part was that maybe there was no difference. I began to wonder if I was starting down the same path you did – from summoning a small devil to opening a Hell Gate. Did you ever have that moment of realization, staring in the mirror? But now I know for certain. No matter what I become, I will never become you."

The words came out like a sigh, like taking off your boots after a long day's march. I could never have told this to anyone else, not Masego, not Black, not Hakram. There were things you could tell your worst enemy that you wouldn't tell your friend. Because though the Diabolist was the Diabolist – because the Diabolist was the Diabolist – I could tell her anything, and she had no choice but to accept it. She would bear all my sins, because her own made mine a drop in the well.

Closing my eyes, I drifted the closest I had ever been to a dream: a golden field beneath a vivid sun. When I opened my eyes, Akua stood in front of me.

She reached behind her back, and her dress fell down to the floor.

"Whatever you are, my love, whatever you will become, I will follow you to the ends of Creation."

She bent down and kissed me, and I did not resist. She led me to the bed, and I did not resist, and she unbuckled my armor, and that, too, I helped her with. The shame did not come until later, when we both lay on the bed exhausted and sweaty – shades, it seemed, still bore that flaw – and I ran a hand over the impressive curve of her breasts, and I drew back as if burnt. I ordered her to claw out her heart. She did so with a smile, but by that point I could no longer bear to look at her, and with a choked sob threw her back into the Mantle.