Allesandra had hoped that she could bask in the sun of her vatarh’s love again. Yes, she’d heard all about how the new A’Hirzg Fynn was the child Hirzg Jan had always desired: skilled at riding, at the sword, at diplomacy. She’d heard how he was being groomed already for a career in the Garde Firenzcia. But she had once been the pride of her vatarh, too. Surely, she could become so again.

But she knew as soon as he looked at her, across the parley tent there at Passe a’Fiume, that it was not to be. In his hawkish eyes, there had been a smoldering distaste. He’d glanced at her appraisingly, as he might a stranger-and indeed, she was a stranger to him: a young woman now, no longer the girl he’d lost. He’d taken her hands and accepted her curtsy as he might have any ca’-and-cu’ and passed her off to Archigos Semini a moment later.

Fynn had been at his side-the age now that she’d been when she’d been taken-and he looked appraisingly at his older sister as he might have at some rival.

Allesandra had sought Ana’s gaze from across the tent, and the woman had smiled sadly toward her and raised her hand in farewell. There had been tears in Ana’s eyes, sparkling in the sun that beat through the thin canvas of the tent. Ana, at least, had been true to her word. She had written Allesandra regularly. She had negotiated with her vatarh to be allowed to attend Allesandra’s marriage to Pauli ca’Xielt, the son of the Gyula of West Magyaria and thus a politically-advantageous marriage for the Hirzg, and a loveless one for Allesandra.

Ana had even, surreptitiously, been present at the birth of Allesandra’s son, nearly sixteen years ago now. Archigos Ana-the heretical and false Archigos according to Firenzcia, whom Allesandra was obliged to hate as a good citizen of the Coalition-had blessed the child and pronounced the name that Allesandra had given him: Jan. She’d done so without rebuke and without comment. She’d done so with a gentle smile and a kiss.