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"That should be the last of it," Chancellor Roderick said as Josephine placed one of her key tokens squarely atop Val Royeaux.

The city was getting quite crowded on the map these days. Josephine had a small cluster of tokens surrounding the Orlesian capital, and Leliana had a marker or two in the mix as well. In fact, much of the map bristled with the little pewter tokens. The Inquisition's influence was felt from Ferelden's coast to Orlais' Gamordan Peaks—though they hadn't pushed farther east than Adamant Fortress.

Josephine smiled. "I'll be sure to send my letter out to Val Royeaux tomorrow morning. Messere Tethras' plan to present Red Crossing to the Orlesian public as a tragic romance is certainly creative, and given the outline he's presented us, I have no doubt the nobility will eat it up."

Ciri stifled a sigh. "It seems ridiculous, but if you and Varric think it will work, then I'm in favor."

"Oh, I'm certain of it," Leliana assured her. "And it gives Marquise Briala another arrow in her quiver by framing the Second Exalted March as a painful misunderstanding of love between a human and an elf rather than a response to an act of elven aggression."

Chancellor Roderick shook his head. "I hadn't realized the Inquisition was in the business of elven propaganda, Sister."

"Why not?" Owain asked. He shrugged at Chancellor Roderick's stern glare. "We and the Chantry are already in the propaganda business. 'The Hand of the Maker extends the Maker's mercy.'"

"That's…" Chancellor Roderick sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, very well. You have a point."

"It's out of our hands now," Raúl said. "We have something a bit more pressing waiting for us, don't we?"

"So we do." Josephine gathered the parchment with all the session's agenda items into a tidy stack and turned to Ciri. "Are you ready for her to be brought up?"

"Not really," Ciri said, and Josephine gave her a sympathetic smile. "But there's no point in putting it off any longer, is there?"

"I'll gather the Inquisition's former Templars," Cullen said.

"And I'll find Mothers Giselle and Kordula, and Seeker Cassandra." Chancellor Roderick bowed shallowly to Ciri and headed toward the door.

Ciri led the way out after him. They walked down the corridor in a grim knot, the daunting task ahead smothering any levity that had arisen during the meeting.

The main hall held fewer than a dozen people when they arrived. A trio of Orlesian nobles sat chatting together at a table near the throne, while off-duty scouts and other Inquisition members relaxed nearby. Ciri's advisors disappeared quietly to go and see to their various tasks, though to her relief, Triss and Owain stayed close.

Movement near the door caught her eye, and she looked over to see Vivienne striding along, a porter hauling a trunk behind her. She headed over, her curiosity pricked, Owain and Triss beside her.

"Lady Ciri," Vivienne greeted her. "You've caught me at an unfortunate time, I'm afraid."

Vivienne's face was serene and composed, but her eyes were slightly reddened. She'd been crying recently.

"Is there something I can do to help you?" Ciri asked.

"I'm afraid not, darling, but that's kind of you." Vivienne gestured for the porter to set her trunk down and stepped closer. "Nicoline and Laurent have written to me asking that I come to the Ghislain estate to–" Her voice caught delicately, and she took a breath and carried on. "To say my goodbyes."

"Oh, Vivienne." Triss walked past Ciri and took her hand. "That's terrible; did your formula not turn out?"

Vivienne looked faintly bitter. "The wyvern's heart had changed too much to be of any use. The potion might have sped my dear Bastien's passing."

A hard, unpleasant sensation of guilt coiled around Ciri's gut. "You needed a wyvern heart?"

"Yes, to heal his wasting illness," Vivienne said. "But whatever changed them outwardly did so inwardly as well. There was nothing to be done for him but to make him comfortable."

"I'm sorry," Ciri said, feeling somehow inadequate in the face of Vivienne's composed grief, and horrendously guilty in the unknowing part she'd played in it.

"Don't apologize for things you didn't do, darling," Vivienne chided her. "It makes you look weak."

Ciri nodded reluctantly. "Safe travels, Vivienne. You'll always be welcome here. And please give my condolences to Lord Laurent and his mother."

"Thank you, Inquisitor. I'll convey your sympathies to Nicoline and Laurent." Vivienne drew herself up proudly, then beckoned to the porter to follow her out the door.

"Damn it," Ciri whispered in the wake of her passing.

"You had no idea," Triss said firmly, "and there's nothing you can do now. Let it go, Ciri."

Ciri sighed and attempted to let go of the guilt that coiled inside her. "You're right."

She turned back toward the end of the hall and saw that the guards were beginning to move the tables back to make room for a standing audience. A small but steady stream of former Templars came through the archway leading to the rotunda and grimly took up positions facing the throne.

"It's time," Owain said, his voice soft.

"I know." She reached out and squeezed his hand, then made her way toward the throne, her head held high.

She still hated sitting on the throne. The arms were too wide, the back too stiff, the seat too deep. She felt less like a child playing pretend this time, however, and more like the heathen she'd been accused of being. How was she to judge a false Divine as a religious authority when she didn't even believe in the religion she was supposed to represent?

But there was no delaying or second-guessing. Not when Chancellor Roderick was returning through the garden door with Revered Mother Kordula and Revered Mother Giselle, and not when Cassandra was striding through the doors at the far end of the hall.

Chancellor Roderick came to her side and handed her a sealed envelope. "This came to Mother Kordula this morning," he said. "It's the Grand Cathedral's last word on Agnesot."

Ciri cracked the seal and pulled out a heavy parchment letter. She felt her face pucker with discontent as she read, and at last she looked up at him and asked, "Do you know what they wrote?"

"The essence of it," he said quietly. "You have my sympathies, Lady Ciri, for what it's worth."

"Thank you," she said, "for never once calling me Lady Hand or Your Worship."

He gave her a kind smile, one small and full of understanding, and he set his hand on his heart and bowed. "You are a better woman than more than half the clerics in the Chantry. Your lack of faith hasn't led you astray yet."

"I'll do my best to live up to that," she said.

"I have no doubt you'll succeed."

He retreated to the revered mothers' sides, leaving Ciri to try and fail to find a comfortable position on the throne. Josephine took up her place at her right, her clipboard in hand, and she gave Ciri a reassuring look as more former Templars continued to file in and take up positions. Behind them, farther down the hall, Ciri spotted Olgierd with the youngest two Trevelyans and Triss, and the rest of her usual traveling companions. Cassandra stood toward the front with Leliana and the Chantry representatives.

The doors at the far end opened again, and a hush fell over the crowd. Heads craned to see the woman held securely between the two soldiers as they marched her forward. And Ciri laid eyes on Agnesot Faure for the first time.

The first thing that struck Ciri was how small she was, fine-boned and petite, barely reaching the soldiers' chins. Her graying brown hair had a gentle curl to it. A simple brown dress and plain leather slippers had replaced her ornate Chantry habit, and she seemed uncomfortable with the way they sat on her, with their lack of weight, perhaps. Her face was pale and lightly lined with age, and it looked like it would be sweet were she not attempting to glare a hole through Ciri.

She was pretty. Innocuous looking. Older, small, even motherly. One might never guess at the atrocities she'd overseen in Lydes just by looking at her. But appearances rarely told the truth.

Ciri silently handed the grand clerics' declaration to Josephine as the soldiers approached the throne with the shackled Agnesot between them. Josephine skimmed it and cleared her throat, looking over at the former grand cleric.

"The court identifies you as Agnesot Faure, the former grand cleric of Lydes, before being excommunicated following your break from the Chantry," she said. "Self-proclaimed Divine Renata the Second, known colloquially throughout Orlais as 'the Red Divine.' Is this correct?"

"I am Divine Renata!" Agnesot spat. "You will address me as Your Perfection. I recognize none of these proceedings and will not be judged by a blasphemer!" She glared at Ciri and added scornfully, "'Blessed are they who stand against the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter.'"

"You are neither a peacekeeper nor a champion of the just," Ciri retorted. "Ambassador Montilyet?"

"Quite," Josephine said. She smoothed out the parchment on her clipboard and looked sternly at the false Divine. "The grand clerics have issued an edict proclaiming Agnesot Faure a traitor to the Faith. Your name will be remembered alongside Maferath's. As he betrayed the Bride of the Maker, so you betrayed His Hand."

"The Maker doesn't have a Hand!" Agnesot cried out in anger. She whirled to face the crowd, reaching out to them imploringly with her shackled hands. "You're blinded by her lies, all of you! We who left, we're the only ones who saw the truth of her perfidy. She let mages run free, toppled the Valmont dynasty, pardoned the abomination who killed Grand Cleric Elthina and hundreds more. She took the Templars away from their rightful path as the Chantry's loyal servants and protectors. What more will she do if she isn't stopped?"

Cullen stepped forward from the first row, and at a nod from Ciri, addressed Agnesot. "We are not your servants. You cannot leash us to the Chantry with lyrium any longer. Our rightful path is ours to decide, not yours."

"Your city's own lady is the one who assassinated the late empress," Rona added. "Grand Duchess Florianne was in league with Corypheus—just like you."

"Never," Agnesot protested.

"You certainly took his general's red Templars happily enough," Ciri said, making Agnesot spin back around to face her. "And my reasons for pardoning Anders were made public months ago. If you chose to disregard them, that's your problem, not mine. Lastly, the mages and their freedom aren't on trial, nor am I. You are. Ambassador Montilyet, the charges?"

"The charges are as follows," Josephine read aloud. "Soliciting the death of a head of state. Accepting aid from Corypheus. Blasphemy. And last but certainly not least, overseeing the deaths of fourteen elves to produce blighted lyrium for Corypheus' Templars."

"And that," Ciri said, her fury turning her words ice-cold, "is where I find myself unable to move forward. As a public figure, it's inevitable that I'll have enemies and face death threats. I've given leniency to Corypheus' allies before. Your actions against the Chantry were, to a certain point, understandable, given the fear that drove you. But this?"

Agnesot stiffened. "The Templars needed lyrium. When General Samson sent them to our aid, we knew we couldn't leave them to suffer. We tried to give them the normal kind, but it proved inadequate for their needs, and what sort of servant of the Faith would I be if I didn't provide for them?"

Ciri smacked the arm of her throne. "A decent one!" She leaned forward. "You sacrificed the most vulnerable among Lydes' population to sate the addiction of Corypheus' soldiers. 'All men are the work of their Maker's blessing, from the lowest slave to the highest king.' That's what the Chant of Light says. And you threw that away to kill innocents.

"We have a cure for lyrium addiction," she continued. "If you had a shred of decency in you, you could have reached out to us and asked for it, to see if it might work on those Templars addicted to blighted lyrium. But you didn't. Marquise Briala's report says that the soldiers who breached the cathedral had to put two of the elves out of their misery—they were still alive, in terrible agony from the crystals growing from their bodies."

"I did my duty as shepherd and leader of the Chantry," Agnesot said. "The Templars needed aid. I gave them the help they required."

"Only a few weeks ago I saw a shattered pile of red lyrium crystals that used to be a human being," Ciri said coldly. "That's the help you gave those Templars, and what you did to those elves."

She sat back on the throne and stared down at Agnesot. "Agnesot Faure," she said, "the court finds you guilty on all counts. The sentence is death."

"I do not fear death, blasphemer!" Agnesot declared. "I will meet my end proudly. Let the world know me as a martyr!"

"The world will know you as a traitor, Madame Faure," Josephine corrected her. "The Grand Cathedral's edict will be announced across Thedas, and your name will be written into history alongside the worst of its transgressors."

"Take her back to her cell," Ciri told the soldiers. "Court is adjourned."

The soldiers saluted her with a fist to their hearts and led the struggling, protesting Agnesot away. The crowd slowly dispersed, the former Templars through the rotunda and back to the barracks and training yard, the revered mothers and Chancellor Roderick through the garden door, and most of her companions out the main doors at the end of the hall.

Josephine handed off her clipboard to a hooded scout with a quiet word and headed straight for Olgierd, her serious expression swiftly overtaken by a beaming smile. As Ciri watched, Olgierd took Josephine's hand and drew her knuckles to his lips, only to stop short and break into a wide, joyous grin at whatever Josephine had to say.

Ciri looked away and stood from the throne, smiling a little to herself despite the heaviness of the trial. They deserved happiness, and she was glad they'd found it in each other. She glanced around the hall for Owain and saw him several yards away, locked in an intent conversation with his siblings.

"Never sentenced anyone to death before," Sera commented from right beside her.

Ciri nodded and fell into step with her as Sera began walking toward the doors. "I've never felt the need. Alexius may have caused countless deaths in the dark future by tampering with time, but it was all undone, and we freed the mages. Servis may have abetted slavery, but we freed the Venatori slaves in the Approach, and he turned on his organization without hesitation. What Agnesot did was far worse."

Sera wrinkled her nose. "Might have clapped Servis in irons a little longer. Talk about little people—can't get littler than slaves. That Red Divine, though. Growin' lyrium from elves to feed to Coryfenus' Templars…eurgh. Goin' to chop her head off?"

"I'll have the tradesmen build a scaffold," Ciri said. "She's not a grand cleric, not a Divine, not anyone of importance, and certainly not a martyr. She's a common criminal who sacrificed the innocent to create a blighted drug for desperate, damaged people, and that's how she can die."

"That somethin' the Inquisition's goin' to have now? A scaffold?" Sera asked. Her eyes were sharp and wary.

"The only thing it will be good for after that will be kindling," Ciri assured her. "No permanent scaffolds here. This is just an exceptional circumstance."

"Well…good then." Sera lost the wariness almost at once, though the sharpness remained. "I trust you, just plain Ciri."

Ciri smiled at that. She was glad that nickname, of all the accumulated titles she had, had managed to stick. "Where are we going?"

"Back to mine," Sera said. "Got somethin' I need to talk about. Come with?"

"Of course."

Ciri followed Sera out the doors and down the steps, and they crossed the grassy courtyard together to head to the tavern. Inside, it was bustling and noisy for midday—the Chargers were all present in the back room, and Maryden's music barely drowned out the din of laughter and conversation. Up the wooden stairs they went, past early diners and earlier drinkers. Sera stopped at her door and fiddled with the lock.

"Can't leave shite unlocked in a tavern," she muttered. "Come in."

Ciri stepped into Sera's room for the first time and looked about with interest. The space was bright and cheerful, much like her friend herself most of the time, with rich fabrics draped over seat cushions in warm, patterned colors and soft throw pillows scattered around. A cabinet filled with books and knickknacks stood against a wall, and she spared a moment to wonder if Sera's delightfully comfortable room had benefited from a merchant shipment or two going astray.

"Out this way," Sera said, pushing open one of the large windows just above the cushioned bench seats. "Grab that plate, will you?"

Ciri glanced down at the crowded table and saw a plate piled high with the Redanian foldover jam cookies that were so popular with the Inquisition these days. The flaky golden crumbs dotting the edge of the plate told her that Sera had already liberally sampled the offerings.

"Tried to make some myself," Sera said as she hauled herself through the window, "but they were nasty, all hard and dry. And raisins, eugh. Come on!"

With the plate in hand, Ciri climbed across the bench seating and through the window to sit beside Sera on the sloped, shingled roof overlooking the doors to the infirmary and Triss, Solas, and Evelyn's workshop. A bit farther off, Cassandra methodically attacked a stuffed training dummy in the shady corner of the courtyard.

Sera snagged a cookie and shoved half of it in her mouth. Ciri looked them over carefully and eventually picked one with a dark purple jam that seemed like it might be blackberry. She took a careful bite and tartness with a little bit of sweet burst across her tongue, the flaky, buttery pastry crunching exactly right beneath her teeth. Plum—how unusual.

"I was orphaned before I could really remember," Sera said abruptly. "Alienage raises you communally when you don't have anyone to look out for you, but it's easy to slip through the cracks when you're little an' everyone else hasn't got anythin' to spare. I took to stealin', an' that young I was rubbish at it. City Guard caught me. They were goin' to toss me in an orphanage. But the lady I stole from took me in instead.

"Lady Emmald," Sera elaborated at Ciri's soft sound of curiosity. "Human noble in Denerim. She was…nice. Sort of. Saw me as a project, a bit, maybe a way to look all charitable-like to the other noble tits, but she cared. Asked me to think of her as a mum of sorts. So I thought, mums make cookies for their kids, right? But she was a fancy-arse noble. She didn't know shite about baking."

Ciri laughed softly. "And what did you do then?"

"'S wot she did next," Sera said. She grabbed another cookie and took an angry bite. "She surprised me with a big plate of cookies one day. Said she'd made them special. An' they were so good! But wot she'd really done was buy them from the baker."

"That's not so bad," Ciri said.

Sera shook her head hard. "She wanted to make sure I never found out where they came from. So she told me that the baker hated elves so I'd never go there. An' for years an' years, I hated him! She lied so she could keep her pride, an' I hated some poor, stupid baker who probably never thought anythin' about elves. An' I hated…" She trailed off, staring out over the grounds.

Ciri nibbled on another cookie and waited for Sera to gather her thoughts. She remembered Sera's offhand mention of Lady Emmald back in Dirthavaren, but she hadn't realized her friend had been raised by her from such a young age or had spent so long in the care, however dubious, of a human noble. Given Sera's outlook on life, her brash mannerisms, and her accent, 'ward of a noblewoman' would be the last thing she'd guess.

"It was easier," Sera said eventually, "to be mad at other elves. They should have been there for me when I was little. I didn't see how hard we all had it then, or how much they tried. Lady Emmald took me in an' gave me everythin', but when I was with her, I learned that ears mattered, that humans looked down on elves, an' elves had pride even when they had nothin'. An' I just… It was easier. To be mad at everyone for bangin' on about ears."

"And now?" Ciri asked gently.

"You were there at the Winter Palace," Sera said with a low scoff. "You saw. Can't play pretend anymore, can I? Celene never would have burned down a human town. Didn't matter that she was pretty. She was still rotten. So I want to help the little people fight back, right? Well, elves are little, too. An' maybe I've been ignorin' that for too long."

"It's alright to be wrong sometimes," Ciri told her.

Sera shrugged and took a third cookie. "Know that. 'M not Solas with my head up my arse about bein' right all the time. I was wrong. Now I'm not. End of story."

Ciri smiled and helped herself to another plum cookie. "Fair enough. So what will you do?"

"Stay an' help," Sera said, bumping Ciri's shoulder with hers. "Can't take down Coryfispit or his baddies without a lot of arrows. You need me, just plain Ciri."

"It wouldn't be the same without you," Ciri said sincerely.

"After that…go back to Denerim, I guess." Sera shrugged, discontent plain on her face. "Lady Emmald left me her estate. Didn't get the title—elf, right?—but I have the manor an' the money. Maybe, maybe I'll try to make things better in the alienage? An' the Jennies are everywhere. I don't have to stop muckin' with the nobles just 'cause I took one's money for myself."

"And what if King Alistair granted you the title?" Ciri asked her. "I could write to him about it."

She expected he'd want to, given what he'd learned about himself and his mother.

Sera paused, her hand outstretched over the plate. "Wot, be like Briala?" She shook her head furiously. "Nah. That's not for me. Be one of the rich tits?"

"You're already planning to, if you're going to take your foster mother's money and estate," Ciri pointed out. "Why not take the title?"

Sera shot her a sour look. "Stop pokin' holes in my plan. Argh. Maybe! I'll say if I want to later. But no, probably not. Probably never."

"If you say so," Ciri said agreeably.

Sera's sour look intensified for a moment, and then she threw back her head, cackling loudly. "You arse! Just tryin' to spread the misery around, that's wot you're doin'. Me, a noble! Pfft!"

Ciri laughed, too, lying back on the warm shingles and munching happily on another cookie. "Stranger things have happened, you know."

"Not hardly!"

They lay side by side in companionable silence, the plate balanced on Ciri's stomach, and watched the soft, puffy white clouds go scudding across a brilliant blue sky.

"This is nice," Ciri said after a while. "And I'm glad we finally had a chance to talk."

"Yeah, well." Sera sounded a bit embarrassed. "I thought, maybe cookies might have been somethin' I was angry about growin' up, so I could make them better. With you. Friendship cookies, instead of pride cookies. Stupid, I know."

"Not stupid at all," Ciri told her, and she reached out blindly to find Sera's hand and squeeze it. "I'm happy to have friendship cookies with you."

"Friendship cookies on the roof," Sera said in satisfaction. "Do I know how to have fun or wot?"

Ciri laughed again and shut her eyes, fishing around on the plate for another cookie. She didn't have anything urgent to do, and there were at least a dozen cookies left.

Olgierd let himself into his room facing the garden after supper, Josephine's sweet laughter in his ears. He couldn't keep the smile off his face as she followed him in and looked around in curiosity. Her gaze fell upon his bed and a charming blush rose in her cheeks—and, interestingly, she smiled to herself, as if she'd just heard the punchline to a secret, very amusing joke.

"Something peculiar about my blankets?" he asked as he took a seat at the bed's foot.

"It's just something Ciri said," Josephine told him, pulling out his hard-backed wooden chair and sitting gracefully. "You keep your bed very tidy."

A playful quip rose to the tip of his tongue about not being opposed to messing it up, but he held it in and leaned forward to reach for her hands instead.

"Well, Josephine Montilyet," he said. "You're your own woman again. No dashing Antivan count waiting to sweep you off your feet when the Inquisition is over."

She laughed. "I have always been my own woman," she said, "no matter where my heart lies."

"My apologies, dove," he said, drawing her knuckles to his lips. "That was carelessly said. I'd not change a thing about you and your independence."

"I know you wouldn't," she said, her voice gentle. "And that is why my heart lies with you, and not anywhere else."

He had learned his painful lesson from clinging too tightly, too possessively, to Iris. She had deserved someone far kinder than he, and for the rest of his life, he would regret all he'd done in their ill-fated marriage when his heart was stone. But if that lesson could help him be even half the man that Josephine deserved, then he'd accept his past, however much the regret stung.

"I still have more to give you from my trip to Novigrad," he said. "Would you like it?"

"You are too generous by half," she demurred, but she smiled and nodded.

Somewhat reluctantly, he released her hands and stood to go to his wardrobe on the other side of his little room. He knelt to pull open the drawer at the bottom and retrieved the twine-tied book. After a moment's hesitation, he also withdrew the velvet pouch and tucked it into his belt purse.

He returned to the bed to sit before her, and he held out the book. "The bookseller and I both thought you'd enjoy this poet," he said as she took it with careful hands. "I hope you like it as well as you do 'The Blue Pearl.'"

Josephine picked the knot on the twine and set the long, stiff string aside on his small table. "'The Collected Verse of Gonzal de Verceo,'" she read aloud. She looked up with a bright smile. "He sounds almost Antivan!"

"Toussaintois, I believe, though I can't be certain."

She flipped open the cover and lightly touched the front page, then turned it gently, stopping several pages in. "'Love,'" she read. "'Love is to build a house of cards, or play a game of chess, but one wrong word or ill-thought move, and you must start it all afresh.'"

"We have started afresh once before," Olgierd said.

"We have," Josephine agreed. "Though I should think we've built something far sturdier than a house of cards." She closed the book and gave him a soft smile. "Thank you, my dear one. This is a lovely gift."

"It's my pleasure."

She stood and held out the volume of poetry, still smiling. "Will you read to me?" she asked. "I would very much like to hear one or two of them in your voice."

"Gladly." He took the book and patted the mattress beside him. "Sit beside me?"

"On your very tidy bed?" She laughed and sat right next to him. Her body pressed against his side and arm, warm and welcoming. "There are a dozen old matrons in Orlais who would be scandalized by this."

"We shared a cabin and a tent on the way back from Val Royeaux," he said mildly.

"Yes, but this is your bed, the bed of an unmarried man. It's a rather different proposition altogether."

Her word choice struck him.

Olgierd fingered his belt purse and hesitated again. "Dove."

"Yes?"

"Do your people propose with rings as mine do?"

Josephine straightened and turned from where she sat to meet his eyes. "We do. There is a tradition in the Antivan nobility of symbolism with the rings. Gold is most favored, for a sweet, rich marriage. With gems, many prefer diamonds, for a clear path and an unbreakable bond, or rubies, for undying love. It's considered an auspicious way to start what is often an arranged marriage—for the groom to give to his bride the things he hopes they bring to their union."

"And what does pearl signify?" he asked.

"Unexpected love," she said, surprise and understanding slowly dawning in her eyes. "That a small grain of sand might turn into something as rare and beautiful as a pearl is strange and extraordinary. Olgierd…"

"It would be crass of me to propose to you the very day you learned your last engagement had been broken," he said wryly. "Wouldn't it?"

"Just a little," she agreed, leaning into him again.

"And it would no doubt cause all sorts of rumor and scandal."

"Oh, all sorts."

A faint huff of laughter escaped him, and he turned his head to kiss her. Her lips parted softly, and she kissed him back eagerly, one hand raising to slide its fingers through the short horsetail at the back of his head. He reached out to wrap an arm around her waist and tug her closer, pulling her halfway onto his lap. The discarded book hit the floor with a muted clatter.

Always she overwhelmed, her softness, her sweetness, her distinctive perfume. Desire rose in him, hot and strong, at having her in his arms and settled on his legs, her lips moving against his. He ran his other hand down her back, slow and sure, and set it right behind her hip. Her hand gingerly explored his chest through his robe.

It was all wonderful, too wonderful, and heading fast toward a bed with very rumpled blankets.

He slowed the kiss, gentled it, then broke it off with a last light brush of his lips against hers.

"I was to read you poetry," he reminded her quietly. "And we wouldn't want to scandalize those dozen Orlesian matrons."

Josephine appeared far less flustered than she had on previous occasions as she slowly slid from his lap and back to the spot beside him, and she looked at him with love in her eyes as she leaned against him once more. "You are thoughtful to consider my boundaries, but I will stop us if it ever becomes too much for me. I do want more. It's just all so new."

She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. "If I am honest, you are only the second person I've ever been attracted to. And the first was an unattainable infatuation in finishing school, a dear friend who wasn't interested in other girls. I've had brief romances in courtships, but not..."

"Nothing further?" He'd known she came to their relationship inexperienced, and it hadn't troubled him. It was much the same for most noblewomen in his generation in Redania.

She shook her head. "I never wanted to. Without love, I didn't have the desire." Her voice went quiet and fond as she added, "I have felt this way for you for quite some time. Since the troubles with the House of Repose."

Since he'd almost lost her, and before she'd decided to forgive him the last of his sins.

"I'm humbled that of all the people in your world and mine that you might love enough to find attractive, you fell for a man like me," he said.

She tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes flashing. "A kind man? One who is intelligent, thoughtful, and cultured?"

He waved a hand up and down at his body, feeling a self-deprecating smile tug at his mouth. "A man so badly scarred, for one. I'm not much to look upon."

She set a gentle hand on his cheek and gazed up at him with fierce affection. "I only see you."

"My dove," he murmured, and he caught her lips in a swift, light kiss. "I do love you so."

"And I love you."

A third time he hesitated, his hand over his belt purse, but this time he slipped it inside and fished out the little velvet pouch. One-handed, he untied the strings and shook the ring out into his other palm, and he held it out to her, both of them looking down at the thin gold band and the silvery-white pearl framed by two deep red rubies.

O'Dimm, or Imshael, whoever it was, would not be the death of him. Not when he had so much to live for.

He looked back up at Josephine's wide eyes and growing smile. His heart almost hurt from the sight, too full and too fond to do anything but ache in a way he hoped would never end. Through a throat tight with emotion, he said, "I honestly haven't a care if it's crass or not. Will you marry me?"