Lehran came to the coronation banquet in a discreet cloak, bearing a letter from his Empress. With Sothe hovering over her shoulder, Micaiah unfolded the letter and read Sanaki's apologies.

Dearest Sister,

I apologize for I will not be able to attend your
coronation. Unfortunately, Begnion requires
my immediate presence for some time. I hope
you find newly-appointed Duke Culbert to be
a pleasant substitute. Should there be any
sensitive matter you wish to convey, you may
place your trust in our messenger.

Sincerely,
Sanaki Kirsch Altina, Empress of Begnion… and so on and so forth.

She had been the guest that Micaiah wished to see above all—she had even arranged a platter of cherries dipped in white chocolate for her. She gathered from the lingering aura on the parchment and the lack of the Empress's renowned humor that the other party was not as bereaved about her absence. Perhaps there had been some sort of familial obligation, some hint of idolization that put "Dearest" before "Sister," but Micaiah had a feeling that their bloodthirsty war lingered between them.

Micaiah said, "I understand."

"I am sorry for any pain I caused you," murmured Lehran. "I'm truly sorry your first meeting had to be under such circumstances."

Sothe's aura went sharp behind her, and before she could politely deflect Lehran's apologies, he brusquely excused himself.

Lehran, she sensed, didn't know. "Sothe... went through a lot in that battle, too," she said carefully.

Immediately, he gave another round of apologies, and parted under the pretense of letting her see to her queenly conversations with the other attendees.

She spent the rest of the night turning that memory over and over until she was no longer sure what she had seen and what she had invented. If any of the diplomats and dignitaries noticed, they said nothing as they buzzed in her ears and her mind of their disappointments during Ashnard's reign (and of the Begnion occupation only in fake whispers) and how she might make things right for them. Even being the Silver-Haired Maiden was better than this.

At least this way she could ensure that they would never have to be the puppet of their enemies again. Every time she visited the streets, the tired widows seeking shelter and gangs of too-young children reminded her of what price that mistake had extorted from her nation.

Perhaps it was fair that her mistakes had cost her, too.

Mingling in a crowd of politicians had left her head feeling as if it were stuffed with wool. Still, she had something she must do. Tonight had not been the first time Sothe fled.

Micaiah knocked on Sothe's door, not calling out, because she knew he could recognize her anyway by the sound of her footsteps and the way she knocked.

Maybe that's why he didn't answer. She felt him tense behind the door.

"Sothe," she said, to give him no excuses.

The door opened after a reluctant pause, revealing Sothe's familiar composed expression above an unfamiliar formal tunic and cloak. "Micaiah. Shouldn't you still be celebrating?"

"I want to talk to you."

He stepped aside from the doorway to let her in, and then released the heavy wood door to close with a shudder. His expression remained cool, almost bored, but the racing of his heart and the sharp sting of hurt dominated her impression of him.

"What's been troubling you?"

"Nothing," he said. His aura pulsed with his heart, rapid thumps of distress, his thoughts streaming toward a mountain pass and Micaiah—"Look, I'll be fine."—images hazing over as he tried to conceal them.

"Sothe," she said sternly.

He turned about as if he could hide his face from her. "It has nothing to do with you." A view from the air, with his scarf tight like a noose around his neck, Micaiah's face shocked but determined, saying But we can't! "Okay, fine! It does. I just want to be alone. Go back to your banquet."

Micaiah held her breath as if her soul would depart if she exhaled. She remembered that scarf, gripped in the hands of the hawk king as Sothe's slender body dangled in the air. "It's about that time, in the mountain pass..."

Sothe whirled back to face her. "Look, I'm fine. All right?"

"Sothe... there are no secrets between us. Isn't that our promise?"

He crossed his arms and looked askance, taking a deep breath as a wave of surprise rolled across his body. Micaiah caught a whiff of It's not like I could ever keep anything from you. "You want to know," he said as a statement. She nodded once. He took a deep breath and grumbled darkly, "I shouldn't even have to say it. You know what you did."

"Sothe, I—"

"Are you going to try to tell me there wasn't anything you could've done?" he cut in. "You could've—you could've retreated then and caught up to them later! You could've lied to them!" It seemed he'd thought about it many times. "He held me over that cliff and you just—let him drop me. You let me die." He took another deep breath, his anger swelling and cresting around him as he said with strange calmness, "I always knew you'd choose Daein."

"I didn't choose Daein," Micaiah protested. "I didn't choose to let you die, Sothe. I couldn't do that..."

"Didn't you? —Like it matters. You didn't save me, either." He turned away from her, hiding his face but not the storm of anger and hurt whirling about him. "Instead, you'd give your own life for the King."

"It was because of you," she said, frustration starting to seep into her voice. "It was because I saw you fall that I couldn't let him die."

"Because of me!? Seriously? Are you seriously telling me it's my fault that you dropped me—"

"I didn't say that!"

"—to my death—"

"I haven't blamed you at all, Sothe, I just meant that after I'd nearly lost you I couldn't bear it again—"

"I didn't mean anything to you until after I'd almost died?"

"Don't say that. You mean so much to me..."

"How can I believe that?" He angled his body back toward her, eyebrows furrowed darkly. "I've—I've watched you do anything for Daein and the king, while you've—you abandoned me. Twice!"

"Sothe." She wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, but some intuition warned her not to touch him.

Momentarily, he lashed out at the dresser, knocking a row of fine perfume bottles to shatter onto the floor. In the pungently fragrant air, Micaiah held her tongue and watched Sothe yank at his hair and curse aloud as paced about the room. (He was frightening her, and she was thankful that he could not read minds.)

"What do you want from me?" he demanded at last, whirling on her.

"What do I want from you?" she echoed, Sothe seeming as confused as she was.

"I've explained myself, haven't I? Why are you still here?"

Because I wouldn't abandon you, she thought to herself with a faint sense of irony. But for all her ability to read him, she had no idea how to respond.

When he had been a child and became consumed in one of his rages, at least she could always calm him eventually. But he no longer saw himself as a child under her care. And besides, this time he was right to be angry.

Sothe turned back away from her. "Just go—Just leave me alone."

The reek of perfume made her feel sick to her stomach. She stepped back and felt for the latch behind her.

"I'll be in the garden if you need me," she said quietly. He shrugged, still a tangle of hurt and rage.

Most of the guests had already retired to their rooms for the night, leaving the garden quiet and clear. Micaiah sat on the rim of the stone fountain, breathing in, relieved to be alone after bearing the presence of Sothe's chaotic aura.

Now that she was by herself, she thought of half a dozen things she could have said. Because I wouldn't abandon you would have been fine. Better than nothing. Because I'm sorry might have helped them heal. But the more she thought about it, the less any well-put reply seemed to matter. Sothe had been beyond words. He was never the type for whom an argument helped anything, anyway.

Once she had firmly settled to herself that there was nothing she could have really done about Sothe tonight, she started to think about what she could have done four months ago, and guilt began to settle back in.

Micaiah heard footsteps before she felt any aura. She looked to her right and saw a tall hooded figure approach. She knew who he was.

"Good evening," he said.

"Good evening."

"May I?" He gestured to the place next to her.

She didn't mind his presence. Unlike the others, he had no aura; it was almost like sitting by a ghost. "Go ahead." He sat quietly, folding his hands upon his lap.

For a moment she thought that perhaps he still somehow had his heron's senses and came to console her because he could sense she was troubled about Sothe. As if he really did, he said, "I realize there's no way to apologize..."

"No," she said reflexively. "It wasn't you..." The topic would've come up someday.

He gave a sharp laugh and said, "There is no one who bears more responsibility for all that has happened than me. I've made peace with that fact."

Micaiah realized that he had been talking about the world war all along. She kept quiet as Lehran relieved himself of his confessions. There was nothing much to say, since they both knew he was right to blame himself.

"It's difficult to even comprehend the magnitude of what I wrought," he continued, mostly to himself. "I endangered the life of every person on this planet. I should be the sworn enemy of everyone in the world. And yet..." he shook his head, pulling the hood back from his face, "and yet you chose to save my life."

When Micaiah thought about it that way, that she had saved yet another life that was not Sothe's, that she had saved the life of the man who forced that impossible decision upon her, she wanted to make him stop talking.

"I'm grateful to you, Micaiah. And at the same time I don't know what I ought to do now. So if you have any need of me..."

She had really had enough tonight. Aura or no aura, she had plenty of problems without coming up with a purpose in life for an ancestor who had left her such a troubled world. She wished he hadn't come. She wished she could be alone for awhile. At the end of her own coronation banquet, Micaiah wished she could go back to being a wanderer again.

"I shall remember you when the time comes," she said. Lehran smiled and exhaled slightly, accepting her answer like forgiveness.

And still he sat next to her on the fountain. At last, Micaiah said, "Pardon me. I'm a bit tired from the festives."

"Of course. Rest well, Queen Daein."

She retreated to the castle, where her servants had the sense to let her be. She thought about going back to Sothe's chambers to see if he had calmed down. But at that moment she realized that she would be like Lehran coming to the fountain, offering vague sweet words, trying to coax forgiveness. So she returned straight to her own chambers instead.

Although she had settled into the room several days ago, the royal bed still looked foreign to her. Still, it was a bed, and she really was tired. She shed her heavy fancy layers with some effort, draped them across a chair, dropped her shoes without straightening them. Only upon falling into bed did she notice how worn out her back had been, and she laid there unwilling to get back up to extinguish the candles. Fine wax candles, each worth enough to feed a child for a week. At that thought, she dragged herself up from the bed to blow each of them out before falling back into bed for good.

Sothe stole candles once—tallow, for the sake of soothing her skin where it cracked in winter. A few hours of light for three months' reprieve from pain. She remembered Sothe dashing perfume to the floor and thought that he had always been prone to angry, senseless destruction. It was always causing problems for them when they already didn't have enough. Once, when he was ten, his dagger cut deep into her arm as she tried to wrest it away from him in an argument. For a brief moment she thought it was unfair that she never held his rages against him but he would be so angry for so long whenever she failed him. But that was what it meant to be a mother, she supposed.

She draped an arm across her eyes to block out the lingering moonlight and stared at the stars flecked against her eyelids. Sothe would probably forgive her eventually. They shared something too old and irreplaceable for him not to. It didn't keep her from wishing that it had never happened at all.