Aven barely finished slinking back into his room in the guesthouse when a commotion shattered any chance of getting to sleep after the night’s events. Doors slammed open in quick succession. And the path was leading directly to him.

  He jerked out of bed as Vestra vis Nightblood tore the bedroom door off its hinges and hurled it aside. Half-asleep, he couldn’t dodge before her wing hooked his arm and dragged him back into the hall.

  “Where,” Vestra snarled, face twisted in rage, “the hells have you been?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer before hauling him downstairs with all the grace of a butcher dragging a carcass. Aelia was already there, in her nightclothes with a look of pure panic.

  “Vestra, stop!” Esharah protested.

  “Quiet, you.” Vestra’s wrath drowned out Esharah’s mental voice. She slammed Aven against the wall. “Answer the godsdamned question!”

  “I’ve been here!” Aven choked out. The void screamed to fight back, and he only barely kept that instinct back because a fight against a truly angry Vestra was a particularly excruciating method of suicide. “What are you talking about?”

  “Tetravis, what is the meaning of this?” Aelia demanded. Obviously terrified, but still she stepped towards a woman who could snap her in half with no more effort than if she were a twig.

  Vestra whirled on her, Aven still dangling from her wing, “Your lover here was just spotted by half a dozen witnesses trying to assassinate Governor Iraias.”

  Silence fell. Heads poked out of their rooms. Including Janaya’s, who looked like she was ready to leap right at Vestra, even with Esharah’s frantic mental messages warning her to stay away.

  “That’s...absurd!” Aelia was the first to speak.

  “I didn’t-” Aven began.

  Vestra’s wing interrupted Aven’s protest by slamming him to the ground.

  “I don’t give a damn whether or not it’s absurd,” Vestra’s voice gained some measure of control. “I care whether it’s true. Plenty of eyes saw you try to break in. Saw you try to run when caught.”

  “That’s a lie!” Aven forced himself up onto his hands and knees. “I don’t know what this is, but these accusations are false. Completely.”

  And then he felt another mental touch. Another one besides Esharah and Mensikhana. One he’d felt once before. A smothering fog of peace. Lady Ashnya.

  Everyone else in the room suddenly relaxed. Their alarm faded away like mist in the morning sun. Even Vestra relaxed from “ready to murder him” to “holding him down so he couldn’t escape”.

  “Goodness,” Lady Ashnya herself glided into the room, wearing a silken night robe. “What a dreadful fuss. Vestra, dear, you were sent to fetch Aven, not beat him senseless.”

  Aven drained the smothering peace into one of his split minds, trying to keep his sense of urgency. “None of this is true. I did not, and would not, try to kill the governor.”

  “Would not?” Lady Ashnya chuckled as if it were a child’s silly joke. “That seems rather at odds with your history. I think everyone here agrees that you are quite morally capable of murdering a public official.”

  Godsdamn the woman. Aven couldn’t even argue against that. “I wouldn’t because it’s colossally stupid. It would jeopardize everything I’ve fought for. Everything we’re trying to do here.”

  “Agreed.” Lady Ashnya smiled and gestured to the door. “Which is why we are going to kindly request you join us for a discussion to get to the bottom of this. As opposed to Vestra’s plan of beating you until you confess to everything.”

  Aven glared at Vestra. Who grunted and unhooked her wing from him. Finally.

  “Come along now,” Lady Ashnya’s smile widened. “We get started sorting this out.” Her smile contracted as swiftly as it had spread, “And if you are guilty, then we will finish it tonight as well.”

  Aven glanced to Aelia, whose mind was a whirl of emotions. Panic, confusion, and underneath it all, a core of belief in him that held it all together. It was that belief that steadied Aven as he followed Lady Ashnya out of the room. Vestra followed.

  Aelia tried to join them, but Lady Ashnya stopped her. “Ah, no Executor, your presence is not required. Esharah, however, will be joining us to lend her particular talents to the truth of this matter.”

  * * *

  “Did you try to kill Governor Iraias tonight?” the magistrate asked.

  “No,” Aven replied, looking the man dead in the eye. Magistrate Camus was scheduled to be in charge of Hellfrost’s justice, and now the man was serving as Aven’s interrogator. He sat on one side of a long, blackstone table. On the other side were Aven and Esharah. Standing behind Magistrate Camus was Lady Ashnya, her aura of peace and pleasantness making this whole situation feel more like a polite conversation than an interrogation. Madame Truthteller’s presence on the other side dispelled that illusion. As did Vestra and Nadyar Velian’s presences at the door.

  The room was small and windowless. The only light an oil lamp on the magistrate’s desk. When Aven arrived, they’d explained the accusations. A servant saw a cloaked figure attempting to enter the governor’s room. When the servant called out, the figure ran, knocking them over, at which point the hood fell down to reveal Aven’s face. Hearing the screams, five other servants rushed in and saw Aven flee.

  And now Aven had spent the last fifteen minutes telling the assembled group that the story was a steaming pile of old oxshit.

  “He speaks true,” Madame Truthteller intoned.

  Between Lady Ashnya’s smothering peace and Madame Truthteller’s overwhelming presence, Aven’s mind was overcrowded. So much that there was barely space for Esharah to offer the real comfort of someone who was actually on his side.

  “Did you break into the citadel tonight?” the magistrate asked.

  “No,” Aven said. “I haven’t been anywhere near the citadel.”

  A pause as they waited for Madame Truthteller’s assessment.

  “He speaks true,” she finally said. A bit...surprised? Disappointed?

  “And did you leave the guesthouse tonight, for any reason?” the magistrate asked.

  “I...” Aven started. He couldn’t lie. Not with Madame Truthteller here. “Yes.”

  A round of sharp inhalations greeted the confession. Along with a grinding noise of bone on bone as Vestra’s wings flexed in anger.

  “For what purpose?” the magistrate asked, gaze sharper but otherwise showing the least reaction of anyone present.

  “To meet with my sister,” Aven said, “without the oversight of Hanion vis Dreamweaver who is coercing her. Both my sisters and my mother will confirm that we met.”

  A pause from the onlookers.

  “Both your sisters?” Lady Ashnya questioned.

  Aven gave an abbreviated detail of the meeting, forgoing the actual matters discussed and the family turmoil. Just the basic facts. For some reason, Esharah was pulsing alarm at Aven’s description. And confusion.

  “Strange,” Madame Truthteller murmured.

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  “Strange? How?” Aven asked.

  “I can tell your mind believes this is true, but there is no one matching the description of Viola Arvanius among the Tenebras delegation.”

  Aven stared, “She has to be. She came in with my mother.” He looked to Esharah, “You saw her, didn’t you?”

  Esharah’s mental pulse was a muddle of confusion, “I...didn’t. I didn’t see either of them. I was distracting Hanion while you were talking with Helena...and then...” She trailed off. Then she’d fallen into whatever dream Hanion’s mind had conjured for her.

  “Further,” Madame Truthteller continued, “Lady Elesmara Genthus has been under our supervision all night as well. Nadyar Velian, you can confirm that Lady Genthus did not leave her residence?”

  “Couldn’t have if she wanted to.” Nadyar Velian bared his teeth at Aven. “Unless she can turn into a mouse, I was watching the entire night. Never even so much as opened a window. And I’d notice.” His grinned flashed at Vestra, “Since I was actually watching the mark I was supposed to.”

  Vestra hissed at Nadyar before Lady Ashnya’s peaceful aura lowered both their hackles.

  “Looks like you’ve been caught in your lies,” Nadyar Velian’s attention returned to Aven. His golden eyes flashed with triumph.

  The magistrate sat up straighter as if seizing on an opening. “And you have perjured yourself before an imperial magistrate. You-”

  “No,” Madame Truthteller interrupted. “He has spoken truth.”

  The magistrate looked baffled, “But...we have determined his claims are impossible.” He gestured to Velian. “We know where Lady Genthus has been. Records show no ‘Viola Arvanius’ among the arrivals. By all accounts, this family reunion could not have happened.”

  Which meant that all the words “Mother” had spoken were fabrications. And which meant that Aven could hope the vision of Viola had been a lie as well, that Mother hadn’t actually cursed Viola with the same affliction she’d passed on to him. Damn that hope for making Aven delude himself about what kind of person Mother was.

  If it was an illusion by Hanion, though, it would explain Mother’s reactions. How she seemed to not remember speaking to Aven early that day.

  “I see two possibilities here,” Lady Ashnya put a hand on the magistrate’s shoulder that made him slump back with a blissfully befuddled face. “Let us explore the first scenario: our witnesses are correct. Aven is somehow brilliant enough to deceive both Madame Truthteller and myself, and skilled enough to slip into the citadel without anyone seeing his entry. Yet, despite having infiltrated our fortress with miraculous skill, he is foiled by a locked door at the very threshold. Further, he is incompetent enough to be seen fleeing the scene by six witnesses. Then, magically regaining his competence, Aven vanishes seemingly without a trace and reappears at the guesthouse more swiftly than Vestra can reach it.”

  She paused to allow everyone to ponder that scenario.

  “I hope you all agree this strains credulity,” she continued. “So, let us proceed to the second scenario: a known Dreamweaver created the false reunion that Aven experienced and simultaneously projected an image of Aven into the minds of the servants who supposedly saw him attempting to enter the governor’s room.”

  “A...a report by multiple witnesses must be considered unless contradicted by incontrovertible evidence,” the magistrate murmured. The remnants of the peaceful Lady Ashnya’s aura had him reciting legal doctrine like a lullaby.

  “Did you check the servants for any sign of a vis’ influence?” Aven asked.

  “Of course we did,” Lady Ashnya smiled as if the question were charmingly na?ve. “The servants are not, however, trained to resist mind vis. Their eyes saw your face; whether a Dreamweaver implanted that image is not something we can tell.”

  Esharah spoke for the first time, “Let me see the servants’ memories. I’ll prove they are false.”

  The panic whirling inside Aven stilled. He wasn’t alone in this.

  “I’m sure it would be within the bounds of the law to allow such an examination,” Lady Ashnya looked to the magistrate.

  “An advocate of the accused has the right to examine all evidence pertinent to the case,” Magistrate Camus intoned in a daze.

  * * *

  Esharah watched as Mariel Vasher did the last round of the night on the citadel’s upper floor.

  A servant of Governor Iraias for fifteen years, Mariel was as dutiful as any. Even after a long day keeping the citadel clean for a hundred distinguished guests, she still remembered to take one last round of the upstairs to check the lamps before sleeping. Especially the one in the Governor’s study, because the poor man so often left it lit when retiring. Even the most brilliant mind could only hold so much. In Governor Iraias’ case, a mind filled with thoughts of running an entire province left little room for remembering to put out lamps before bed.

  All dark, all blessedly quiet.

  And then Mariel saw the cloaked figure at the door to the Governor’s bedroom.

  “Who’s there?!” Mariel cried. “Intruder!”

  The cloaked man started. Then bolted.

  Right towards her. She fell back with a cry, holding the candlestick in front of her as a ward. Useless to stop the man’s charge. When the man slammed into her, his hood fell down.

  An unforgettable face. One that rumors had been spreading about for days, even before he’d turned feral and attacked one of the delegates that very day. That voidtouched. That devil, that-

  “Stop here,” Esharah said.

  Madame Truthteller froze the image, holding it still. Such frozen memories were often...distorted. Mortal memory worked continuously, filling in gaps through the context around it. A single, frozen image was rarely complete, but some things were vivid enough to still stand out. In this case, the man’s face in Mariel’s memory. Black veins crisscrossing a twisted face.

  Esharah tried to ignore the fear, the distress pulsing in Mariel’s mind, emotions strong enough to persist even with Lady Ashnya’s soothing. She reached out with her own mind, superimposing an image from her own memories of Aven directly alongside the frozen vision. Mariel’s mind recoiled at the intrusion, but Lady Ashnya held it steady. The faces lined up.

  But not exact. Subtle differences appeared. The pattern in the black veins didn’t quite match. The image in Mariel’s memory had longer hair too, closer to the style of a moderately fashionable Genthi youth than a legionary captain’s more practical cut. Even the nose wasn’t quite right. Slightly less of a curve to it in Esharah’s image.

  “Aven,” Esharah asked. “Did you change your nose when you rebuilt your body from the void?”

  Aven paused. He winced.

  “Growing up, everyone told me I had Father’s nose,” he muttered, embarrassment colouring his tone. “Wanted my own.”

  So he had some vanity after all.

  “In any case, this image is not Aven,” Esharah announced. “It was formed by someone quite familiar with Aven, but...outdated.” She projected another image onto the scene. The figure of Aven who’d first arrived at Hellfrost. Missing the black veins, but otherwise nearly identical to the false image. “And unable to capture the exact patterns of the black veins.”

  They released the memory and returned to reality. Back to the interrogation room where the servant Mariel was currently seated. whimpering in discomfort before Lady Ashnya’s soothing touch and Esharah’s withdrawal allowed the poor woman to relax into her induced sleep.

  “That’s consistent with Hanion vis Dreamweaver as as suspect,” Aven supplied.

  “It is,” Madame Truthteller agreed. “But not enough to accuse. Particularly because, if your theory is true, then there was no actual attempt on the governor’s life.”

  Esharah paused. She hadn’t considered that.

  “False accusations are also a crime,” she said, looking to the magistrate.

  “Yet Hanion vis Dreamweaver has not actually accused Aven of anything,” Magistrate Camus said. “Penalty for false witness could only go to the servants who saw Aven.”

  “Believed they saw Aven,” Esharah corrected. “But surely Hanion has committed some crime. ‘Coercion by means of vis’.” That was the crime they’d pin near any vis for in her days as inquisitor. Because any body domain vis who ever achieved anything by being stronger and faster than the average mortal could be said to be using their vis for “coercion”.

  “Do we having anything other than circumstantial evidence pointing to Hanion vis Dreamweaver?” Magistrate Camus asked. Apparently alert enough to be a stickler now that Lady Ashnya’s attention was no longer on him.

  “Since when has the law of Northstar needed more?” The question came out of Esharah’s mouth far more bitter than intended. Though not more bitter than it deserved.

  “Since the figure in question is a member of a delegation from Tenebras at a meeting of such stakes.” Lady Ashnya interjected smoothly. “Further, since the public belief is that Governor Iraias’ life was threatened, we must treat the matter with a seriousness to match.”

  “Public?” Vestra snorted from the back of the room. “It’s only us here and the servants who know.”

  Lady Ashnya’s look was pitying, “Vestra, do you really think any threat anyone could devise will prevent this tale from spreading? Especially when you announced, quite loudly, in the middle of the guesthouse exactly what Aven was being accused of?”

  Vestra flushed and fell silent. Esharah could only stare. Vestra was accepting a reprimand? The world truly was turning upside down.

  “We have good reason to suspect a mind vis was involved in the attempt on Governor Iraias’ life,” Madame Truthteller spoke. “That is sufficient justification to question Hanion vis Dreamweaver.” Her sightless gaze turned to Aven, “In the meantime, to satisfy public appearance and to preserve caution, Aven Arvanius will be kept under constant guard.”

  “I’m to be a prisoner,” Aven whispered. Esharah felt how his mind recoiled from that. Not just his mind. The void itself recoiled. A black spike growing on the back of his own neck for a half a second before he crushed it down. This was what Hellfrost had once been for him. A cage.

  “For your own protection, of course,” Lady Ashnya purred. “And for the governor’s peace of mind. The public believes you attempted an assassination. Until such a belief is dispelled.”

  Madame Truthteller and Lady Ashnya’s presences combined to force that reality onto Aven. And still he pushed back. Still his spirit fought the cage.

  “On behalf of Executor Aelia and the Hellfrost delegation,” Esharah spoke up before she could lose the courage, “I offer my expertise to the investigation into these false accusations.”

  All gazes turned to face her.

  “Madame Truthteller will vouch that there is no inquisitor in Northstar better than me,” Esharah met her former mentor’s scarred eyes. “I will prove beyond any doubt that Hanion vis Dreamweaver has framed Aven and sabotaged this gathering.”

  Esharah felt Aven’s gratitude pour out. But she couldn’t take pleasure in it. Not when that sweet emotion was spoiled by the bitter taste of the pride spilling forth from both Vestra and Madame Truthteller. Pride they felt because Esharah was returning to the role of inquisitor that she’d cast aside and sworn never again to take up.

  “Then I welcome you to the investigation, Esharah Nightblood,” Madame Truthteller inclined her head. “A pleasure to be working with you once again.”

  * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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