The story begins like this: he’s bored and she’s lonely.

Roran Garrowsson, called Stronghammer, has been king for nine years that have seemed like minutes. He talks politics like a pro, can fake convincing smiles or cry real tears depending on which the occasion demands, and he knows how to dance and which fork to use.

Inside, though, he’s still the farmer’s son who talked crops, said what he meant, and owned only one fork—the kind he used on haystacks.

Katrina, as it turns out, does not make a good queen. To her credit, she would’ve been a great farmer’s wife—cooking, cleaning, and producing enough sons to run a farm without hired help. But she has no head for politics, no real intelligence or social skills or even good sense, and Roran sees less and less of her as the years wear on. She spends most of her time in the nursery chasing his brats (of which he now has five: three boys, Cadoc, Garron, and Andrin; and two girls, Cara and Ismira), and court gossip calls her “quiet” and “eccentric,” nicknaming her the Recluse Queen. They don’t even share a bed anymore, although their rooms adjoin. Most nights he finds it too much effort to go over to her side.

Enter Birgit Mardrasdaughter, called Lady Shrrg by her affectionate underlings. As reward for her support in the war of ten years ago, the newly crowned king set her as ruler over Tierm, the diamond in the Broddring Kingdom’s crown. It’s a bustling seaport full of merchants who can more than afford to pay generous taxes—at least, once the pirates mysteriously vanished, a happy turn of fate that people tried not to question. If Birgit and a select crew of privateers were not to be found for several months preceding that disappearance, no one who noticed said anything. And if Lady Shrrg came back from her ruling hiatus with more battle scars than she set out with—well, her rule was so fair and her bodyguards so large that people kept their mouths shut about that too.

Birgit’s battle scars were as follows: numerous healed scrapes, bruises, and scratches; five tender welts across her upper back that, in time, faded to pink lines; a flower-shaped tattoo across her hipbone, which is now misshapen due to stretch marks; a deep scar that barely missed her left eye and stretched from her temple to the corner of her mouth; two piercings in each ear, in which she wore gold hoops and dangling ruby drops; and a decided swelling of the abdomen, which produced, five months later, a red-haired girl-child named Robin.

Having no time (or possibly no desire) to care for her daughter, she sent Robin away to live with her son Nolfavrell. At that time he was nineteen and betrothed; his fiancé, fortunately, was a very understanding girl, though that may have had something to do with the fact that Nolfavrell had just been named governor of Gil’ead.

Her other two children—a daughter, Maris, and a son, Brook—had just turned fourteen and twelve, respectively. They, too, had gone to live with Nolfavrell, due to their mother’s extended absence, and it was Maris who ended up with the task of raising Robin.

Maris is twenty now. Robin is six, and Brook is dead, killed in a riding accident at the age of sixteen. Nolfavrell’s wife Hester is expecting Birgit’s second grandchild.

It is partially because of them that Birgit decides, at the ripe old age of thirty-nine, to stray from her comfortable town-house in Tierm. Though she likes keeping a constant watch on her city (knowing that people are only good, honest citizens if they know someone’s keeping an eye on them), it gets lonely without a family around her. Sure, she has the city council to talk to every sevenday, but they all want something, which makes talking to them exhausting. And her neighbors are her friends, kind of—the nice old sea captain’s widow who obsessively tends her wilting garden, and the merchant’s mistress who has her over for tea every now and then. But they’re not family.

So she packs up her court gowns (unused for many years, now a bit tight around the waist), buys presents for her children and grandchildren, asks the widow to feed her cats, and sets out on a tour. From Tierm to Gil’ead, and from Gil’ead to Ilirea, to end her visit by paying her dues to a king she only speaks to in letters.

King Roran thinks she has forgotten her vow of revenge ten years ago. He thinks that his gift of a city governorship has paid her off. He is wrong. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Birgit has had nine years to perfect her recipe.

I.

i want your ugly

i want your disease

i want your everything as long as it’s free

i want your love

love love love

i want your love 

“Birgit, how lovely to see you.”

Birgit tries not to grimace; of course Queen Katrina is the welcome mat they roll out for her to walk on. The years haven’t been kind to the king’s wife—she’s pale and drawn now, her copper hair wispy and frizzing out of her lady’s maid’s attempt to arrange it fashionably. There are purple half-moons under her eyes, which are explained when she mentions that her youngest child Andrin was up all night being ill.

“But how are your children?” Katrina asks, after detailing her own brood’s various ailments.

Birgit smiles a little, despite herself. “They’re very well.” Nolfavrell and Maris have grown into handsome, sensible, responsible adults with a love of adventure and new experiences. Robin is now an independent, precocious fireball with a spicy temperament she clearly inherited from her mother. Feeling something more must be added, she says, “Nolfavrell’s wife is due this winter. They’re hoping for a son this time.”

Katrina takes Birgit’s arm to lead her out of the castle’s entrance hall and back toward the guest wing. “How wonderful for them. And you a grandmother before you’re forty!”

“Don’t remind me,” Birgit says stiffly. She was married young and had Nolfavrell almost too soon after her marriage for it to be quite decent, which means that the term “grandmother” is now applied to her before she considers herself old enough for it. She’s never been comfortable in the role of matron; her quiet life in Carvahall, while her husband still lived, frankly bored her to death. Chasing pirates and knocking heads together (usually in a metaphoric, judicial sense) is the life she glories in; being a widow is more enjoyable than being married ever was.

The guest suite prepared for her arrival is too lavish for her taste: feather pillows, a down quilt, and silk sheets imported from gods-know-where—and that was only the giant four-poster bed. There are also dwarf-wrought tables, a chaise lounge upholstered in Fanghur leather, and her own private bathing room with a porcelain bathtub and a painted china pitcher-and-basin set.

“Gaudy,” she remarks to her maid, Hilde, who—although she was handpicked for sensibility and levelheaded intelligence—is gawking at the furnishings in awe. “I certainly hope these are left over from the Traitor King’s reign. If Roran allows his staff to decorate in this manner, my faith in his abilities is gone.”

She’s right, of course, though she has no way of knowing it—the expensive, overwrought furnishings were left over when Galbatorix and his loyal minions were ousted. It is only because of Roran’s servants that they were not taken out behind the castle and burned. They explained to him, a little condescendingly, that guests to the castle couldn’t very well sleep in a haystack. Roran, at the time still used to sleeping on the ground with a naked sword by his side, couldn’t see why not; but since the servants knew more about running a castle than he did, he let them have their way.

Hilde shakes her head, as if to shake off her momentarily foolishness. “My lady, did not the queen say that dinner is in half an hour? You need to start preparing immediately.”

“Of course.” Birgit strides over to the trunks that preceded her into the room. “I suppose the green gown will do,” she muses—a decision made mainly because said dress is the one packed at the top.

Hilde shakes it out, tsking at the wrinkles. “It needs pressed, my lady,” she says.

“So it does.” But there’s no time to make it perfect. Birgit turns to Hilde for help with the long row of buttons reaching from her nape to the small of her back. Her travel dress, a bland, unpretentious gray-blue thing, falls to the ground, and Hilde tosses the green gown over her head.

It takes some shimmying to get it in place; since she had it made for her brief stay at court just after Roran’s coronation, she has had a fourth child, and her breasts and belly have expanded accordingly.

“Goodness,” Hilde says, eyeing the gown’s neckline. When it was made, it was not meant to be modest, but neither was it meant to push up quite as much cleavage as it now does. “I think I had better arrange to have these let out a little, my lady.”

“I think you’re right,” says Birgit with a grimace, looking into the full-length mirror next to the bed. She entertains no delusions about the figure she sees there; her body bears the signs of both childbirth and seafaring adventure, neither of which make it beautiful. Unlike some women, she makes no effort to hide her flaws. If people find her scar ugly, they don’t have to look at her.

“Sit down,” Hilde orders. “I’ll need to do something with your hair. You can’t just braid it for court.”

Birgit’s auburn hair, now tinged with silver at the temples, was once her glory, the crown of her beauty. Lately she’s taken to braiding it out of the way, knowing any effort at arranging it is wasted—nice hair can’t make up for flogging welts, stretch marks, and a knife scar.

Tonight, though, she succumbs to vanity. “All right then,” she says, sinking into the chaise. “Work your magic.”

***

Birgit descends for dinner with her chin held high and her newly dressed hair defying gravity, steeling herself against the murmured comments and strange looks. But she’s not prepared for how many of the courtiers at dinner are old friends.  

Each of the Carvahallers were offered a place at court, and while many declined, choosing to return home and rebuild,  a fair number of them still reside here in the castle. Birgit sees brothers Baldor and Albriech first, and though they comment on her scar, they seem intrigued by it rather than repelled. Neither of them accepted the ruling positions Roran offered his loyal followers after the war—instead they chose to take up residence in Ilirea (the former Uru’baen) and find jobs. But even though they’re not technically ruling class, they’re frequent castle guests—the king considers both of them good friends.

Angela, the odd herbalist that Birgit befriended in the Varden camp, is there as well. “Birgit!” she exclaims. “About time you paid a visit! This lot are so full of themselves now. I can count on you to be interesting.”

“Likewise,” Birgit says, flashing the witch a knowing smile. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for court life, Angela.”

Angela shrugs. “I like being unpredictable. And I’ve always liked being where the action is.”

“And right now, it’s here?”

“So say my mysterious witchy divination devices,” Angela says with a wink.

She turns away, and at that moment, Birgit catches sight of Roran for the first time in nine years.

He’s roundabout thirty now, in his prime. He has thankfully trimmed that wild, disgusting beard of his soldier days to a tame square patch framing his mouth. His curly hair is greased into submission and combed to one side, crowned with a plain gold circlet. Although his clothes are finely made, they’re as plain as current fashion will allow.

Birgit can’t keep her eyes off him.

“Dinner is served,” someone calls. This is the cue for everyone to walk to their assigned spot. Birgit hangs back, waiting to find a vacant spot. Then she catches Katrina’s eye. The queen motions to the seat next to hers.

Self-conscious and hating herself for it, Birgit sits next to Roran’s wife—two places down from the king himself.

Catching her eye, he smiles. She immediately senses that it’s faked. “Welcome back to the castle, Birgit,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”

“That it has,” she says, allowing a smile in return. She resolves to play her cards carefully. Roran has never just been any old acquaintance—never mind that now he’s king—and she knows he’s wilier than he pretends.

“I always enjoy your letters,” Roran says, picking up his spoon and starting on the soup course. “You have a… unique way of seeing the world.”

“A cynical way, you mean?” Birgit asks. “Or a pragmatic one?”

“Both.” Roran smiles slyly. “I assume you’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You assume right.” Birgit sips her own soup. It’s more of a stew, thick, with plenty of meat and potatoes. Good. She’d be disappointed if the farm boy king let his kitchen serve fancy dishwater. “And what have you been doing these nine years, Stronghammer? I get only the occasional terse reply to my cynical, pragmatic letters, so I’m forced to fill in the rest through common gossip. Is it true there’s a secret revival of Dragon Riders going on in the Spine?”

“Of course not,” Roran scoffs. “Eragon’s Saphira and Nasuada’s Eden were the last of the dragons, and they will not be returning in our lifetime. If you really care to know, I’ve spent most of my time studying law and history.”

“You can read now, eh?”—teasing him.

“So can you, I imagine.”

“Touché.” Birgit inclines her head toward him. “I learned, yes, but it makes my head hurt. I usually dictate my letters.”

“I can afford no such luxury,” Roran says wryly. “A king must be learned. I’ve become quite the scholar. Would rather be out hunting or riding, of course, but I never seem to have time.”

The conversation continues well into the dessert course, dancing on the line between friendly small talk and teasing flirtation. Katrina only interjects twice, and the second time it’s to ask Birgit to pass the salt.

Birgit finds that, against all expectations, she thoroughly enjoys their talk. Roran has come a long way from the reckless, unsophisticated farm boy she knew in Carvahall. In essence he’s still the same, with an enjoyment in simple pleasures and a preference for straight-talking honesty; but there’s more to him than is clearly visible, and this new depth intrigues her. He is more an adult than when last she spoke with him, and she feels they are finally on the same level.

***

It’s hard to sleep that night. Birgit feels uncomfortable in the fine silk sheets, and Hilde is snoring so loud that she can be heard even from the adjoining room.

Not one for counting sheep, Birgit gets out of bed and slips into her least uncomfortable shoes. She puts on her coat over her nightgown—these castles get so drafty—and quietly steps out into the corridor, shielding her candle’s flame with one hand.

Wandering through her townhouse when she can’t get to sleep is a long-established habit, but one that she will have to break while she’s staying in Castle Ilirea. The castle’s cold corridors are nowhere near as comforting as the familiar shapes of her furniture and her sleeping cats. Soon she’s more awake than she was when she left the room.

Just as she’s about to turn back, she hears approaching footsteps. The castle nightwatch? I’m probably not supposed to be out here. A thrill zips up her spine, the kind of delicious fear of being caught she remembers from childhood games of hide-and-seek.

“Birgit? Is that you?”

She turns. It’s the King. Belatedly, she realizes she’s wandered into the corridor just outside the royal suites.

“Evening,” she says, attempting a nonchalant smile.

After a wary pause, Roran returns the smile. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

“No.” She shakes her head, aware that her hair has come out of its elaborate updo and is now a mess. “I confess, your rooms are too fine for me. I prefer a simpler bed, one without stifling curtains and clingy silk sheets.”

“Ah, silk sheets.” He winces. “Can’t stand ‘em. Had them banned from my chamber when I took up residence. Good sturdy cotton is good enough for this king.”

“Then what keeps you up tonight, if not your bed linens?” Birgit inquires archly.

He groans, putting callused fingers to his temples. “You don’t want to hear about my problems.”

“Perhaps I do,” she murmurs. “Have you anyone else willing to listen? Gods know I haven’t, and some days it’s unbearable.”

“No, I don’t,” he admits.

Their eyes meet. The flickering candlelight is reflected in the mud-brown of his iris, and Birgit is suddenly reminded of the saying about what happens to people who play with fire.

His decision is swift. “Walk with me,” he commands, “and I’ll match you grievance for grievance. Tell me your problems, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Birgit holds his gaze. “As you wish, my King.”

 (lovegame intuition play the cards with spades to start

and after he’s been hooked i’ll play the one that’s on his heart) 

II.

i want your drama

the touch of your hand

i want your leather-studded kiss in the sand

i want your love

love love love

i want your love 

They end up in the empty throne room, wrapped in the fur lap blankets that Roran uses during particularly drafty sessions in court. Even their whisper-voices echo in the wide, bare chamber. Roran shrugs deeper into the furs and watches Birgit’s lashes cast long, flickering shadows on the scar that cuts across her cheekbone. Somehow, even this public chamber feels intimate, in the dead of the night with only two guttering candles. Alone with her.

He’s always admired Birgit. She’s the kind of woman it’s hard to ignore, hard to forget—he remembers her bold strategic moves during the war, her unwavering support. And he particularly remembers the night she kicked that arrogant sailor in the balls. If ever he loved and feared someone at the same time, it was her, in that moment—her fearless independence is a turn-on, reluctant as he is to admit it.

The second he laid eyes on her at supper tonight, he knew he was in for it. Her gown was too tight to be decent and her hair high enough to endanger the chandeliers, but she pulled it off with a roguish, devil-may-care swagger that was totally unladylike—and all woman.

It’s too easy to talk to her. She talks like a man and flirts like a woman, and he can never quite tell which she’s using on him—sometimes it’s both at once. Watch your step, Stronghammer, he tells himself sternly. She’s dangerous.

She leans against the base of his throne, furs tucked around her casual as anything, waiting for him to speak.

“You first,” he says finally.

But she shakes her head. “I’d rather hear your troubles before spilling my own.”

“Well then. What shall I tell you?”

“You could start, perhaps, by telling me why you’re awake and pacing the halls.”

He runs his hand through his hair. The grease he uses to flatten it is wearing off, and it’s beginning to stick up wild as always. “Katrina and I had words tonight,” he admits. “She says I need to see more of my children. She thinks I should teach my daughter ‘how to be a queen’—like it’s an arithmetic lesson! She accused me of being a bad father, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s true.”

Crown Princess Palancara, affectionately known as Cara to her family, is nearing her tenth birthday and shows an annoying tendency toward her mother’s ways of thinking. Early on Roran had hoped to instill a love for history and justice in his daughter, hoping she would rule after him. But after a while it became clear that, while Cara is good at changing her siblings’ soiled diapers and can best her mother at needlepoint, her future dreams extend only to being swept off her feet by a handsome prince and settling down with a family. Ruling a kingdom is beyond her.

Roran has become increasingly worried that he has begotten a succession of stupid children, but he can tell their mother no such thing. The only one he has any hope for is six-year-old Garron, his third child, who begs the nursemaids to let him attend court and has gotten quite good at chess. The rest are their mother’s children—eight-year-old Cadoc wants only to play at fencing and riding horseback, and the two youngest are spoiled and whiny.

All this comes pouring out as Birgit listens expectantly. “I wish I could borrow your children,” he says finally, exasperated. “Nolfavrell is just what I want my boys to be—brave, smart, levelheaded.”

“If you ask my opinion, Roran—you expect too much of them,” Birgit says. “Mine were a handful at that age, too. A child’s personality isn’t fixed until they’re well into their teens—that’s what children do. They grow and change. I’ve never yet met a child who cares for history or politics—wait ten years and you’ll see. They may yet surprise you.”

He sighs. “How can you be sure? I knew Katrina since birth, and she’s always been the same. Always unsure, always hanging back and letting others decide for her—I should have known she’d never be a good queen. I expected her to change like I did, to change from Carvahall villager to responsible royalty. I guess it was too much to ask.”

“Well, my husband was an overbearing, meddlesome blowhard,” Birgit says. “Have my children turned out that way?”

“No. Of course not.” Roran sighs. “Thank you, Birgit. I can always count on you for good blunt advice.”

“You’re welcome. And while I’m at it, here’s more: I think your wife’s right. You ought to spend more time with your children, if only to give them a better influence than their mother is providing.”

“You agree with her?” Roran says, surprised.

“That’d be a first, wouldn’t it? Listen, Stronghammer, it’s no secret I think Katrina’s useless. That seems to be something we have in common these days. But children learn by imitation. The parent they watch most will be the one whose actions they copy. It’s your job to make sure you’re that parent.”

He nods thoughtfully. Already, ideas are forming—ways to steal his children away from their mother and bring them into his world. Birgit, with a few well-spoken words, has inspired the exact feelings of paternal duty that Katrina sought to ignite with an hour of shouting. A new wave of contempt arises for his wife. Other women can be rational about things like this.

“Your turn,” he says, shaking off those uncharitable thoughts. “Now you tell me something.”

“What would you like to hear about?” she asks.

“How you got that scar. The real story.” He heard her, earlier, telling Albriech she got it fighting a sea monster singlehandedly—an obvious fib, though an entertaining one.

“That’s a costly request,” she says quietly, running her fingers across the mark. “Are you sure you have a tale equal to it?”

He keeps his face blank. “We’ll see.”

She pauses for a few moments, her hazel eyes faraway. “It was near the end of our voyage,” she begins. “We’d sunk five ships flying the pirate guild’s flag, and we were finally on the trail of the leader. Or so we thought.”

Roran suspects he’s being told another whopper, but keeps quiet.

“We stopped in some tiny seaport for supplies and dropped anchor there for the night.” She takes a deep breath. “We didn’t know the guild leader had beat us there. His ship was anchored a league off shore waiting for his signal. They surrounded our inn in the night. Torched my ship—I lost three good men to the fire. Lost a fair few more trying to get away from the inn.”

She’s staring into the candle flame, and now Roran’s not quite so sure it’s a tall tale.

“Took me captive,” she says, her voice roughening. As the tale progresses, she has dropped into a seafaring accent. “My ship burning was the beacon for his crew to pick him up. They hauled me, the captain, and the first mate Robert into the brig in chains.”

Her eyes snap up to meet his.

“You only see this scar,” she whispers, touching her cheek. “You haven’t seen the others. They flogged us. Tortured us. You ought to know what flogging’s like, Stronghammer. It’s meant to break your spirit. Beat you down ‘til you’ll do whatever they ask to stop the pain. They tied us to the mast afterwards, half-bare, bleeding, barely conscious, and roughed us up. Not enough to kill, just to add insult to injury. Then they cut me down. Just me.”

“Oh, gods,” Roran says, and covers his mouth because the interruption is involuntary. He knows what Birgit’s about to tell him, and wants both to hear it at once and to shut it out of his mind forever.

“They took me by turns,” she says, her voice flat now. “The leader of the pirate guild was first… and last. I think he enjoyed my pain the most. He was a redhead, you know. I think Robin’s his daughter. I’ve no way of knowing, though, have I?”

“Birgit, stop,” Roran pleads.

But she won’t, or can’t. “After, they tossed us back in the brig. Robert, I owe that man my life. Swear he kept me from dying. He washed my welts with salt water and talked the whole time—talked me back from wanting to die. The captain had a broken arm and wouldn’t say a word to anyone, save for cursin’ the pirates. Those men loved me like brothers, and the pirates made ‘em watch, see.”

She takes a deep breath. “So the next day, they came back for me. I think they were going to kill us that time, but we never let ‘em. Robert got hold of a loose timber and started thrashing left and right with it. I somehow wrested a blade away from one of the pirates. I was so bloody mad I went berserker and hacked at everything that got in my way. They told me later I killed about ten of ‘em by myself. I saved the leader for last. Held him down and cut at him all gentle, ‘til he was cryin’ for me to kill him. Then I stabbed him in the chest so many times his shirt near fell off in ribbons. I remember standing at the wheel when it was all over, crying blood.”

Birgit brushes her thumb down the length of the scar again. “It wasn’t tears, really, it was this. Got it in the fight, don’t remember when or how or who. Lots of ‘em had knives. We used ‘em to weight the bodies when we tossed them overboard.”

“Then you sailed the ship back to port with only the three of you?” Roran asks.

“We hadn’t got more than a day’s journey out. Wasn’t hard.” Birgit shrugs. “What was hard was getting the bloodstains out of the deck.”

That’s the end of her story. They’re both silent for awhile, Birgit waiting for him to respond, Roran unable to think of anything to say.

“Have you ever told anyone before?” he asks finally.

“Parts of it,” she says with a shrug. “The rest of my crew, when we met back up at the port, I told them we were captured and beat up. I didn’t tell them about the rape. The captain and Robert are the only ones who ever knew.”

“What are you going to tell your daughter?” He regrets the question as soon as it’s asked.

“She asked when I was visiting last week. I lied,” Birgit says. “I said her father was Robert, my companion on the voyage, that he was the man I loved most in the world after my husband. It was only half a lie. I did love him… just never like that.”

Roran stares at Birgit, completely thrown by her riveting horror story. He can’t imagine what she’s been through. No wonder she distances herself from her children—the first three once tied her down to a domestic life she didn’t want, and the fourth is now a reminder of the worst moments of her life.

One more question spills out before he can stop it. “Has there ever been anyone?” He knows she didn’t marry her husband for love—gods knew Quimby never treated her like she wanted. He was the kind of man who wanted a servant, not a wife, and Birgit would never have chosen that for herself.

She cocks an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

Mortified, he shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Have I ever had a lover, you mean.” Birgit regards him levelly, back to her usual composure. One corner of her mouth turns slightly upward. “I’d love to tell you that story, Stronghammer, but it’ll have to wait for another night.”

She stands up, shedding the fur blanket, and collects her candle. “Good night,” she says softly, and is gone.

Roran returns to his bed, too, but sleep eludes him for a long while. When he finally does drop off, he dreams of pirates and blood, and wakes pinioned in his sheets like they’re chains.

 (shadow is burned

yellow dance and we turn

my lashes are dry

purple teardrops I cry

it don’t have a price

loving you is cherry pie)

III.

you know that i want you

& you know that i need you

i want it bad like a bad romance 

By unspoken agreement, that night is the first of many they spend together, walking the dark halls of the castle and talking together.

There is nothing overtly romantic about it; they’re simply two old frenemies who have a lot of stories to tell. Roran pours out his insecurities and many, many mistakes as a young ruler, wounds he’s kept festering out of sight, wounds he tells everyone else are healed. In return, Birgit tells him what she failed to mention in her businesslike letters and reports: the whole adventure with the pirates, the pain of losing a son to a senseless accident, her successes and failures as a governor.

Neither of them care to address the question of why they cannot meet for these long talks during the day. As it is, in daytime they hardly ever see each other. Roran’s got enough business to attend to, between running a kingdom and trying to be a good influence on his children, that he, at least, has an excuse.

Birgit can’t say the same. She finds daytime court life to be excruciatingly boring. The most excitement anyone ever gets is playing croquet in the garden or visiting the poorhouse to distribute kitchen scraps and old clothes. She begins to spend the entire day in anticipation of seeing Roran.

He shows her all around the castle, from the lookout towers to the enormous library to the treasury and armory deep below the ground. “I miss the days when I could get lost in here,” he comments once, during their exploration of the latter. “Getting lost in your own home is a unique kind of thrill.”

Shortly after that, he pranks Birgit by slipping down a side passage while she is distracted. Her reaction, presumably, is gratifying: she calls his name a few times, mutters something about him being a bastard, and promptly takes a wrong turn and ends up in a room full of rusty old torture devices left over from Galbatorix’s reign. As she’s looking around in keen interest mixed with thinly veiled horror, Roran contrives to jump out at her from behind a rack of wicked-looking blades.

Her scream summons a guard, who then has to be assured that there is nothing wrong, and that the King was just being a rude dickhead as usual. The poor guard goes away with his ears sizzling from Birgit’s language, utterly confused as to why the King is actually laughing at such blasphemy.

“I’m flattered,” says Roran, through his chuckles, when the guard is gone. “You only insult people you like.”

“Sometimes I make exceptions,” she teases.

“Right. You called Galbatorix a son of a whore once. I assume you don’t like him, although… is there something you’re not telling me? Perhaps he was your mysterious lover.”

Ever since that first night, Roran has been trying to convince Birgit to tell him the identity of the lover she hinted at having. Naturally, she won’t tell him anything; she enjoys keeping one secret from him, though she spills everything else.

“That’s not even funny,” she says, though she smiles at his teasing tone. It’s nice to hear him genuinely laugh. She gets the feeling he hasn’t done it very much lately.

“You’re right,” he admits. “And probably not even possible. Did you ever actually meet him?”

“Never,” she says. “Did you?”

“Just once,” Roran says, shuddering. “I was with Eragon when we met with him to negotiate. He was—gods, you know what was scariest about him? Was that he was so normal looking. Might have been any man off the street. No scars, no red eyes or fangs. But when he talked, you could hear the madness in his voice.”

“I wish I’d met him,” Birgit says speculatively. When Roran gives her an odd look, she explains, “He was the most powerful man in a hundred years. Maybe more. Natural talent for magic, strong, handsome—but what was most dangerous was his charisma, the way he made people trust him. I can see why so many chose to support him, at least at first. If it weren’t for the madness, he’d have been the greatest King in the history of Alagaësia.”

“Funny,” Roran says. “They said the same about Palancar.”

Ever since his relation to the ancient King was confirmed by some dusty scribe looking through miles of genealogies and who-begot-whom, a lot of things have made sense. His months of madness trying to get revenge on the Ra’zac for kidnapping his sweetheart—the way the Carvahall villagers had followed him without question. Nasuada choosing him as the future King, with the kingdom’s wholehearted approval. Before, all those things had taken him by surprise, but now he understands. The madness runs in his blood, and so does the leadership. He just has to ensure the latter is always in control of the former.

Birgit sees and accurately reads the look on his face. “You’re not a spoiled, inbred fool like he was,” she says. “Your roots as a farmer, your time as a soldier, even stealing that ship—all that makes you a better King than any princeling heir. You know what your people feel like, because you’ve been them.”

He looks down at her, taken aback by the sudden ferocity of her tone.

“That’s why I supported you every step of the way, from Carvahall to your coronation,” she says. A tinge of color appears on her cheekbones, but her gaze is unwavering. “You may have your moments of crazy stupidity, but when all is said and done, Roran—you’re a better king than they ever were, because you’ve never lost sight of what is important.”

“Did you just… praise me?” Roran feigns shock.

“Of course not,” Birgit says. The pink tinge spreads across her cheek. “I merely stated the facts, as I always do. How you take them—praise or insult—is entirely up to you.”

“Then am I to understand that calling me a dickhead in front of my own staff was merely stating the facts as well?”

“Naturally,” she says. She holds her face straight for exactly six seconds before a chuckle slips out and ruins it.

As they’re laughing, a scullery maid dashes out of a nearby passage—one of the servants’ shortcuts—and stops, giving them a strange look. “Your majesty. My lady,” she says, curtseying awkwardly, and disappears off in the direction of the kitchens.

“Are the kitchen maids up already?” Roran says. “Good gods. It’s later than I thought. Down here, with no windows, it’s too easy to lose track of time… we should get back, Birgit.”

“Yes, of course.” Birgit suddenly feels guilty for having stayed out all night. If someone were to see them sneaking back to their rooms together… well, it wouldn’t look right, and Birgit wonders how far wrong they’d be in their assumptions. She and Roran aren’t physically intimate, but the past few days they’ve been talking and teasing just like a pair of young lovers. Intense heart-to-hearts mixed with jokes and games like tonight—all that’s missing is the lovemaking.

What are you doing, Birgit? she thinks, suddenly very tired. It’s one thing to destroy the King’s marriage. But it’s another thing entirely to fall in love with him herself.

Her plan of revenge was always to destroy his marital happiness. It’s been brewing since she gave Katrina away at the wedding—she thought she could always count on the silly chit as a pawn in her game of revenge. But it seems Katrina’s done the work for her, and now she’s beginning to wonder if her plan so far has only served to bring him happiness.

Worse, she feels more and more that her own happiness has begun to depend entirely upon him.

This is not good.

“I need to get to bed,” she says briskly, pulling her coat more snugly around her sensible blue nightdress and beginning to walk away. “Good night, Roran.”

“Wait!” He jogs to catch up with her. “Birgit—there’s a dance tomorrow—that is, tonight. It’s an informal thing, you know, just the courtiers who want to come—they do it every sevenday. Mostly it’s the unmarried ones. Big courting ritual.” He stops abruptly, as if he feels he’s said too much, and then starts again. “What I’m trying to ask is, if you’re going—and I hope you do—will you save me the first dance?”

“Is Katrina not coming?” Birgit asks, more coldly than she means it.

“She never does. Hates dancing.”

Birgit knows that if she says yes, she’ll risk making them both the butt of gossip. She also knows that if she doesn’t get herself out of this now, someone’s heart is going to get broken, and it’s probably going to be hers.

And she knows that if she agrees, she’s going to have to spend the rest of the day practicing all those stupid dances she learned nine years ago and then promptly forgot.

But that doesn’t stop her from saying, “All right then,” and smiling at the delighted grin that spreads over his face.

***

As she curses and stumbles her way through half-forgotten dance steps with the long-suffering Hilde—as she upends her trunk across her bed and fervently wishes for a newer dress—even as she watches her maid’s deft fingers plait, curl, and pin her hair, Birgit considers not going to the dance.

She considers ordering her meal sent to her room, which is perfectly acceptable and done by several other courtiers who dislike communal dining. Considers telling everyone she is ill: it’s her time of the month; ate a bad sausage at breakfast; caught cold—no, better yet, the stomach sickness from Katrina’s brat. It’d be too easy. They’d all believe her.

Except, perhaps, the one person she seeks to avoid.

No, she decides after each fresh wave of doubt, I won’t lie to Roran. It would be an act of cowardice unworthy of the fearless Lady Shrrg that took down the pirates’ guild. She said she’d dance with him, and by the gods, she’ll do it.

The dress she ends up wearing is a shimmering silvery-blue thing she only wore once. It’s an empire-waist and used to be too big in the bust, so it fits better than the rest of her things. The long sleeves flare out in a way that she used to (and still does) find annoying, but the overall effect is rather attractive.

Hilde has, upon request, done her hair less voluminously this time, braiding strands of it into a knot at the back and letting the rest curl in artful wildness. She even wove a string of pearls through the braids like a crown, a touch that Birgit finds unnecessary but pleasing.

“Good gods,” she says in shock when her maid finally propels her toward the mirror. “I look halfway decent.”

Hilde laughs. “Whoever he is, my lady, he won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”

Birgit turns to her sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Why, my lady, if I’m out of place, I beg pardon. But seems to me you’d not want to go to a dance like this ‘less there were some gentleman who’d caught your eye.”

“There’s no one,” Birgit says coldly. The lie tastes bitter in her mouth. “Perhaps I’m just tired of being alone. I can’t be a widow forever.”

Hilde says nothing, but Birgit knows the maid won’t believe her. Hilde’s been with her long enough to know Birgit’s quirks—she knows that her mistress is too stubborn and independent to marry again. She recalls, not so long ago, Hilde listening to her deriding the practice of marrying for power or security as “whoring oneself out to the highest bidder.”

If she and Roran continue like this, Hilde is going to find out. And despite the maid’s sworn discretion, others will start to find out as well.

One last moment of doubt. It’s not too late to invent an illness.

She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. “Thank you for helping me,” she says in Hilde’s direction, and then sweeps out the door.

***

The formal ballroom is too grand for a private dance like this one, and the night is so pleasant that the dance is held outside. The main garden path is cleared for the dancers, and the musicians gather in front of the fountain. Lanterns hung from the trees aid the moon and the fireflies in lighting the place bright as day.

“Isn’t this fun?” Angela comments gleefully to Birgit as they stand on the sidelines sipping mulled wine. “I just love dancing. No one will ask me, naturally, but watching is almost better.”

Birgit watches Angela’s weird cat wind about her ankles and wonders where the hell Roran is. Two dances have already been danced, and she’s turned down a well-meaning (and not unhandsome) suitor for the first dance because she thought she had a partner.

But half an hour later, Roran still hasn’t shown up. Birgit dances with the fellow from before—Lord Darel by name, a council member who looks to be in his upper fifties. He’s pleasant enough, but clearly on a hunt for someone to end his lifelong bachelorhood. Birgit’s not what he’s looking for, and she ends up pointing this out rather bluntly.

Annoyed and disappointed, she wanders back toward the castle. I won’t even go to see him tonight, she decides firmly. If he can’t make time for me, then I—

“Birgit!”

He’s approaching from the castle, half-jogging, out of breath.

“I’m late, aren’t I? Damn.” He stops in front of her. “I’m so sorry. King business I couldn’t get out of—Lady Lydia was making trouble again, and it took all evening and an entire bottle of blackberry wine to shut her up about tax records.”

But Birgit is in no mood to be forgiving. “What are we doing, Stronghammer?” she says quietly. “Sneaking around, too guilty to be seen together out of the shadows—”

“No, that’s not true, tonight really was unavoidable—”

“But all the other evenings? Why can’t we meet when there are other people around? Why can’t we talk then?” Birgit steps closer. “Roran, we both know why. This isn’t friendship. This has never been friendship.”

His heavy breath brushes her cheek. Alcohol and blackberries. “You’re right,” he murmurs finally. “It’s enemies or lovers with us, isn’t it? Can’t walk the middle ground for long.”

Her heart skips to hear him say it like that, out loud. “So what now?” she whispers.

“You have to go back to Tierm,” he says. “It’s the only way.”

Heaviness settles in her chest. “I’ll leave tomorrow, then.”

She carefully steps away from him. The tension stretches and thins as she walks back toward the castle. She waits for it to break, to set her free so she can run back to her down-covered four-poster and scream into her pillow.

Her back is to him, so she doesn’t see him coming. All she knows is that one minute she’s walking away, and the next, he has her up against the doorframe and is kissing her like his life depends on it. And when she recovers from the shock, she’s pulling him closer, her blood singing with the adrenaline-laced ecstasy of loving him.

“It’s not the only way,” he says against her mouth, ragged and desperate. “Stay with me. I couldn’t stand it if you went away.”

“Say please,” she orders him.

He guides her away from the doorway, into the dark shadows behind the staircase. “Please,” he says in her ear. His voice reverberates through every one of her nerves.

She answers him by catching his lower lip between her teeth and digging her nails into his shoulders.

“Am I,” he gasps, “to take that as a yes?”

  (let’s play a love game, play a love game

do you want love, do you want fame

are you in the game?)

IV.

i want your love and i want your revenge

you and me could write a bad romance

i want your love and all your lover’s revenge

you and me could write a bad romance

The candlelight’s warm dance of light and dark plays across the bed. Roran is almost lost in it. He is nearly asleep with his head on Birgit’s midriff, and she is playing idly with his hair.

At eye level is one of her more intriguing physical features—a tattoo of a flower. It might have once been someone’s crude rendering of a poppy, but now it’s a misshapen outline of what could be any flower. Her body must have changed under it, skin stretching, and with it the ink.

“Where’d you get this?” he murmurs, tracing it lightly with his forefinger.

He feels her sigh. “Robert inked it before we returned to Tierm. After—you know. I still had nightmares about it, and he told me the only way to make them stop was to reclaim my body for my own. So. He helped me pierce my ears and inked that design.” Her hand comes over to tangle with his questing fingers.

“Why did you choose a poppy?” Roran asks.

She seems pleased that he guessed what it was supposed to be. “My ma used to grow poppies in her garden, when I was growing up. I thought they were the most beautiful flowers in the world. Even when the petals went brown and fell off, they stood up tall and straight with a crown of thorns about their heads.”

“Symbolic.” Symbolic of a woman who, when her youth and beauty and innocence were taken from her, still stood proud and straight-backed. A woman who ruled both herself and others with unwavering dignity.

“Exactly.”

Roran is silent for awhile, then asks, “What happened to Robert?”

“Killed in a duel the night Robin was born,” Birgit murmurs. “Some stupid drunken quarrel. It went too far, too fast. His opponent only lost a hand.”

“I think he was in love with you,” Roran says quietly.

Birgit sighs. “I thought so too sometimes. If he had spoken, perhaps we would have—but he never said a word, and I kept our relationship professional.”

“He inked this flower on you, here,” Roran says, stroking the intimate skin across her hip. “How professional was that?”

She shifts under his touch. “In retrospect, not very. Can we not talk about him anymore?”

“All right,” Roran says, moving to kiss the tattoo instead. She wriggles and tells him to stop teasing.

“Tell me one more thing?” he asks, raising up to look into her eyes.

“Maybe.”

“Tell me who your lover was.”

She grins. “Once I made love to the King of all the land.”

“Oh really?” Roran continues to tease her with his fingertips, causing her to groan. “Once? I think it was more than that.”

“All right, thrice then. In one night at that! I think, sir, you are trying to kill me.”

“Who else?” he demands, suddenly filled with a jealous curiosity.

“Other than my husband, no one,” she tells him, as serious as she can sound when breathless. “I have had no lover save an illusion of revenge these ten years.”

He pauses, and though she writhes against him, he feels he must understand. “Then you never—?”

“No,” she says firmly. “It’s been a good long while since I’ve had anyone at all. I merely meant to tease you—‘twas your imagination invented some sordid affair.”

“And all this time, you were thinking of me?”

“Oh don’t get me wrong,” Birgit says, “I hated you most of the time. Could have killed you in your sleep, were you near enough. But, yes, I thought of you… all the time. I say revenge was my lover, but that’s too general—you have been my bedfellow on all those cold nights, when I could think of nothing else would put me to sleep.”

She rolls them over, putting herself on top, and grins down at his expression. “Why, King Roran, unused to having women fantasize about destroying you before they go to sleep at night?”

“What revenge, exactly, did you intend for me?” Roran asks. He’s not sure he really wants to know the answer—what if it’s a blade between the ribs while he sleeps?

“I dreamed of wrecking your marriage,” she confesses. “It was once the thing that mattered most to you, so I thought it would kill you to take it away. Imagine my surprise when I came here and found my work already done.”

Roran sighs, his hands slipping from her body. “We’re hammering the last nails into its coffin now, aren’t we?” He thinks back to a time when he really did love Katrina, and wonders how it all could have gone so terribly wrong.

In an effort to turn him from that line of thought, Birgit bends to kiss him. Under the curtain of her hair, it’s just the two of them in the dark—and she whispers against his mouth, “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

***

It was once the thing that mattered most to you.

Birgit’s words haunt Roran as he goes about his business the next day. In the dark of the night—in the candlelit shadows—loving Birgit had consumed his mind until nothing else mattered. But with sunlight streaming through the windows of his private study, he’s forced to examine his choices more closely.

He never thought he’d be the type of man to have a mistress. Never would have dreamed it’d be Birgit, who was old enough to change diapers when he was still soiling them. When he became king, twenty years old and alight with idealistic fervor, his wife was the only woman in the entire world.

He’s still not sure when that stopped. It died out so gradually that he didn’t notice until their fourth child was on the way, but he supposes it must have been over by the third year of their marriage. Their relationship was based on dreams and physical attraction, neither of which age well without a deeper connection behind them. He and Katrina were never friends. In fact, they hated each other until adolescence kicked in and that annoying, whiny redhead from the butcher shop suddenly had breasts.

Roran lets his head fall forward to rest on the ledger currently open in front of him. “I am a fool,” he mutters to himself. “A thrice-curst idiot.” And the acts of idiocy just keep piling up, he thinks bitterly. First I fell in love with a stupid woman—then I was fool enough to marry her. Now I’m an adulterer. What next? Will I steal a dragon and rename my council “the Forsworn”?

“Sire?”

He lifts his head. Helmstad, his assistant (or, more accurately, his glorified errand boy) is standing in the open doorway.

“Yes?” he asks, daring Helmstad to comment on his un-regal behavior.

“Your daughter is here to see you,” the man says, his face blank.

“Oh. Right.” He did summon her this morning, and in his turbulent mental state had forgotten. “Send her in.”

Helmstad steps out, and a moment later, Crown Princess Palencara nervously creeps in. She’s got her ma’s face, pale and fragilely pretty, and the round eyes that take up half of her face are a lighter golden-brown like Katrina’s. But her hair is all her pa’s, dirt-brown and wildly curly, tumbling to the small of her back. She’s had it done up nicely to see her royal pa—he knows for a fact she usually wears it in braids.

“Hello, Cara,” he says, trying to smile in a nonthreatening way. He sees them so little now, it’s small wonder she should be nervous to see him. “How are you?”

“Very well, thank you,” she says, sounding just like her etiquette mistress. He tries not to make a face at her formality.

Thankfully, she drops it and raises those wide scared eyes to his. “Papa, have I done something wrong?” she asks.

“What? Oh. No, of course not.” Good gods, if they think that being summoned to see their pa means they’ve done something wrong— “I simply thought it would be nice to spend some time with my daughter. You and I don’t see each other very much.”

When Cara doesn’t answer, he forges on. “When do you turn ten?”

She blinks at him. “Next month. The solstice.”

Of course. How could he forget? The night Katrina gave birth to their first child, people danced in the streets to celebrate the longest day of the year. Upon the news of a daughter being born to the new king, Baldor and Albriech had gone up to the highest tower and set light to some of Orrin’s latest inventions: cylinders of powder that, when touched with fire, shot straight up into the sky and exploded into a shower of exquisite sparks.

Roran had thought that night the most magical of his life. It was raining diamonds made of fire, the people were happy, he was in love, and his newborn daughter was squalling her lungs out in her mother’s arms. When they put the child in his arms, he crooned some nonsensical love song and danced her around the room like a fool.

The other births had been progressively less exciting. When Andrin, the youngest son, was born, he was allowed to hold him for a few moments while someone recorded the name—Katrina’s grandfather’s name—and then he was pushed out of the room by the midwife. The worst part was that he hadn’t really even cared about the whole process anymore.

It’s not too late, he tells himself. Birgit showed you that. It’s never too late to change things.

Rising from his desk, he approaches his daughter and holds out his hand. “Come with me,” he says gently. “To blazes with my work—let’s go for a walk in the garden. I want you to tell me everything about your life that I’ve been missing.”

(watch your heart when we’re together

boys like you love me forever)

V.

i want your horror

i want your design

‘cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine

i want your love

love love love

i want your love 

Birgit does not know how she ended up spending the day in the castle nursery—with her lover’s wife, no less, for company. But here she is, perching on the windowsill watching Katrina embroider a handkerchief in her rocking chair, while Andrin and Ismira play with a set of painted blocks nearby.

“Mira, don’t boss Andrin around,” the queen orders without even looking up.

“But Mama,” Ismira protests in a high-pitched lisp, “he doethn’t know how to build right.”

“Then teach him,” Katrina says absently.

Birgit remembers her Ismira, the best friend with copper hair and a merry temperament. The woman who married to make her parents happy, and found that her husband was the sort of man who hit his wife no matter how sweet and servile she was. The woman who, having taken enough torment, went swimming right above the rocky dropoff of Igualda Falls, and let the current tug her just a little too far—did it on purpose, taking herself forever out of the reach of her husband’s fists.

This bratty little girl seems a poor choice to carry on the name of Birgit’s one-time best friend.

Katrina interrupts her thoughts: “Birgit, dear, could you get the pale green thread out of my workbasket?”

Birgit rolls her eyes, but gets up and sorts through the basket until she finds the right shade of green.

As she returns to the window, she happens to look down, and notices Roran strolling through the hedge maze with Palencara on his arm. The girl is laughing at something he’s saying, and is standing tall and proud as if honored to have her arm linked through her father’s. She looks a far cry from the shy and dim girl Roran painted her to be. Perhaps all it took was the pair of them getting to know each other a little better.

So I was right. I knew it!

“What are you smiling at?” Katrina wants to know.

Birgit points out the window. “Palencara and Roran. Looks like they finally made friends—you got your wish, Katrina.”

Katrina puts her embroidery hoop down and comes to stand by Birgit. “About time,” she murmurs. “I thought that man would never listen to me.”

He didn’t, Birgit thinks smugly.

Then Katrina looks up, a line of confusion appearing in her forehead. “How did you know that was my wish?”

Birgit curses her careless tongue. As far as Katrina knows, she and Roran only speak once in awhile at mealtimes.

“I, ah, heard you say something once, and I guessed,” she says, hoping the fib won’t be too obvious.

“Oh.” Katrina turns her gaze back down to her husband and daughter. “You’re very perceptive,” she says quietly. “Roran doesn’t spend enough time with our children. Sometimes I think it will ruin this family, like all royal families in history—next they’ll all be plotting to kill each other and him, like in the old tales.”

“Nonsense,” Birgit says. “Those tales are all highly embellished. Being King is a lot of work, and if your children have a scrap of sense, they’ll want to keep their pa on the throne as long as possible so it doesn’t become their responsibility.”

This keeps Katrina quiet for awhile. That is, until Cadoc comes in clutching something furry in his hands.

“Mama, look! I found a rat outside in the gutter!”

In a shrieking second, Katrina and all the maidservants are standing on the chairs, clutching their skirts.

“Cade,” Katrina says shakily, “g-get that out of here this instant.”

Unfortunately, the rat has other ideas. It chooses that moment to nip Cadoc’s finger, and the boy flings it from him with an angry exclamation. It lands right in Katrina’s bosom. Her piercing squeal is almost amusing to Birgit’s eyes—the queen topples backward and lands with a sick thud on the floor. Clawing red streaks in her pale skin, the creature leaps away from her batting hands. It darts across the room and takes refuge behind a chest of drawers.

Birgit does not like rats either, but she feels it’s her duty to keep her head when all the other women are screeching. “Please tell me you keep a cat here,” she says, more or less in the direction of the children.

Garron, the serious six-year-old, speaks up. “Yeah, miss, we have a cat. His name is Arrow.”

“Good. Will you please fetch him?”

The cat is duly fetched, but it turns out to be fat from table scraps and isn’t interested in chasing after some skinny old rat. Sighing, Birgit resigns herself to having to catch it herself. She puts the boys to work rigging up a trap using their various toy bins and some old blankets, and then, wincing with distaste, begins to push the chest of drawers away from the wall.

As predicted, the rat shoots out from its hiding place, and straight into Cadoc’s waiting bin. Righting the box immediately, Cadoc drops a blanket over the rat and bundles the squirming critter up.

“Now put it outside immediately,” Birgit orders him. “And you had best not bring it back. Vermin like that always have a dozen diseases on them.”

Cadoc looks at the squirming bundle with new disgust. “Diseases?”

“Oh yes. Diseases that make you die a slow, horrible death coughing up your own blood.”

Suddenly, he can’t get out of there fast enough, carrying it at arm’s length.

Birgit goes to Katrina, who’s surrounded by a posse of fluttering nursemaids just as distraught as she is. “Up you get,” she says gruffly. “Come on, now, Katrina.”

“I feel dizzy,” the queen slurs, before fainting back onto one of a nursemaid’s lap.

Sighing, Birgit goes to call a healer. At least she won’t be obliged to spend the day with Katrina when she is prostrate in bed.

***

The healer diagnoses Katrina’s illness as a combination of nerves, head trauma, and the bloody marks left by the rat. She is left to sleep the rest of the day, and Birgit thinks nothing of it.

But in the following days, the queen does not improve. Roran grows more and more preoccupied during their nighttime trysts, and though during the day he spends more time with his children than with Katrina, Birgit can tell he’s worried. He won’t say a word to her, so Birgit finally inquires of the healer himself about the queen’s condition.

“The rat that scratched her poisoned her blood,” the healer murmurs. “The wounds have gone bad and she has a fever. We’re hoping for the best, but hitting her head weakened her—she may not be strong enough to fight it off.”

Birgit displays all the proper concern, and then goes straight to Angela. They’re keeping this illness quiet, so the herbalist hasn’t heard of it yet, but Birgit knows that Angela’s the only one with any chance of saving Katrina.

So she invites Angela to come back home with her for a visit, and informs the witch she’s leaving tomorrow.

And Angela, surprised but evidently pleased, says she’ll come.

 (control your poison babe

roses have thorns they say)

VI.

i want your psycho

your vertigo stick

want you in my rear window, baby you’re sick

i want your love

love love love

i want your love 

Roran pretends to be sane.

He pretends everything’s fine, because it’s what his staff needs to hear, and it’s what his kids need to hear too. But everything is not fine. His wife lies dying, and his mistress has fled the castle in the company of the only healer with enough power to save her. It’s not bribing the physician exactly, but it’s damn close.

Birgit has sent her message loud and clear: if your wife dies, we can be together in the daytime. No more sneaking around.

She’s right. If Katrina doesn’t recover, he’ll be available to marry again after a suitable mourning period. His children will have a strong, no-nonsense stepmother who would never indulge their weaknesses—a stepmother who’d make them into fine, upright leaders of society.

But he cannot—will not—just let Katrina die. They may not love each other anymore, but he doesn’t hate her either, not enough to kill her. And to his conscience, it will be murder if he does not fight her illness with all the kingdom’s power.

He sends messengers out to all the skilled magicians he knows. The half-elf hedgewitch in Narda, old Gertrude’s onetime student who now lives in Dauth, even the elusive Elva Starbrow. He’s sick to think that he didn’t think of summoning Angela until Birgit spirited her away.

But he doesn’t send a messenger after them. He doesn’t want Birgit to know she’s winning.

***

“Papa, is Mama going to die?”

Cadoc asks the question from his own sickbed. The rat’s bite has given him one of the dreaded diseases, or at least he thinks so; the healers told Roran that the boy has worried himself ill in sympathy to his mother’s more grave condition. His symptoms are only a fever and a lack of appetite—thankfully, not infection.

“No, Mama’s not going to die,” Roran says bracingly. “And neither are you, young scamp, so don’t even think about it.”

“But Papa,” Cara asks solemnly, “how do you know?”

The other three faces looking at him across Cadoc’s cot are all asking the same question. Roran sighs.

“I know because the best healers in the whole world are arriving as we speak,” he says. “They’re going to fix your mama, and she’s going to get better and we’ll all be fine again.”

And maybe we’ll even try to be a family again.

Mira climbs across Cadoc’s legs to nestle in Roran’s lap. “For real, Papa?” she lisps.

“Of course. You just be my brave princess, and you’ll have your mama back before you know it.”

Cadoc’s nursemaid interrupts at that point. “All right, all right, back to the nursery with all of you,” she orders. “Your brother needs rest. Your Majesty, if you wouldn’t mind—”

“Of course.” Roran sets Mira back on her feet and stands up. “Feel better, Cade,” he murmurs, ruffling the boy’s close-cropped curls.

Leaving the room with the rest of his children pressing close to his sides, he feels a strong glow of protective, paternal love. The fact that his marriage was failing was no excuse for the way he ignored these children—each with their own flaws, yes, but every one of them young and bright and full of infinite potential. And each of them irrevocably his own.

Caught in this rush of sentimental emotion, he kneels and draws the three youngest to him in a wide, squashy hug. “I love you all,” he admits, the words as much a surprise to his own ears as they are to his kids’. “I love you so, so much.”

Cara, after only a slight hesitation, joins the hug by wrapping her arms around Roran’s shoulders from behind.

He’s not sure he ever actually hears them say the words back, but for the first time he feels them, in the deepest part of his heart. And that’s enough.

***

Elva Starbrow arrives that very day.

This is a surprise to Roran, who knew it’d be a long shot if his message even reached her. To have her be the first arrival is unexpected, but he chooses to consider it a blessing.

The girl once called Witch Child is about twelve years of age, or at least that’s what most people say. But in physical appearance she is a grown woman of eighteen, strange and deadly beautiful. Though her black hair, carelessly chopped above her shoulders, looks like she took a knife to it in the dark, it’s impossible to ruin the effect of her gaunt figure, tough and wiry, and the angelic face with those mesmerizing purple eyes. An overhanging chunk of hair doesn’t quite cover up the silver-white star on her forehead, a memento of the curse that caused her to grow up before her time.

Trailing in her wake is what’s left of the man who was once Thorn’s Rider. When his dragon was killed in the battle against Galbatorix, Murtagh survived—but went mad in the process. No one saw him again for several years, until suddenly reports and rumors were flying around that he’d been sighted in the company of the Witch Child. They were a package deal from then on. Murtagh was back in his right mind, or as near to it as he would ever be, and as for Elva—well, it was arguable whether she was ever in her right mind.

Roran is, frankly, terrified to meet them.

“Thank you for coming,” he says graciously, when they’re shown into the sickroom. “You don’t know how indebted we are to you.”

Elva ignores him. She floats to Katrina’s bed—barefoot, he notices—and leans over her, fingers hovering just above the queen’s skin. “Ohhh, it’s bad,” she says quietly, and her dry voice makes it sound like sarcasm. “She might yet live, but not without help. Mur, come.”

Murtagh goes to her, a dog on command. He puts his hand to her forehead—nails cracked and dirty, he doesn’t look like much of a healer. “Infection,” he says, his tone suggesting that he is past caring. “The poison is near to her heart.”

“Can you heal her?” Roran begs.

Murtagh turns stony eyes on him. “I can,” he confirms.

“The question,” Elva says, “is whether he will.”

“If it’s payment you ask, I assure you you’ll have whatever you wish. Up to half my kingdom, isn’t that tradition?” But as Roran meets that queer gaze, he knows it’s not compensation they want of him.

“Why do you want her healed?” Elva says, barely above a whisper. “I know your secrets, Stronghammer. I know all the pain you’re hiding in here—” she lays a cool hand in the center of his chest—“but I want you to voice it. Why should you not let your wife die? You do not love her.”

“I—” Roran looks over at Katrina’s sleeping form, tossing and moaning in the throes of fever. How lucid is she? Could she hear if he confessed his infidelity?

“Is it a sense of propriety, perhaps?” Elva prompts. “Would your adoring subjects be critical if they knew their King let his wife die apurpose?”

“No,” Roran says. “That’s not it. Not all of it, anyway.”

“Then what?” Elva presses, her lips curling back to reveal white teeth. “Why do you save her?”

“Because I love my children,” Roran blurts, “and it would destroy them to lose her.”

“Liar.” She draws her hand back as if he’s dirty. “Oh, yes, that may be a factor. But that is not the true reason.”

“I can’t let her win,” Roran whispers.

Elva pauses, eyes glittering.

It’s Murtagh who breaks the silence. “Her?”

“Birgit Mardrasdaughter,” he says. In for a copper, in for a noble, as the saying went. “My—my lover. It’s her last act of revenge against me—to destroy my marriage completely. When she found out Katrina was dying, she stole my only competent healer and fled. She means for me to let Katrina die so that we can be married.”

“And why not?” Elva asks, leaning in too close. “It’s so convenient. The illness was an accident, and neither of you will be blamed if she dies—why not let fate run its course, and be married to the woman you love?”

“I can’t,” Roran says miserably. “I’m afraid.”

He realizes vaguely that he is now weeping, and curses this weird girl who has so completely unmanned him.

“Afraid?”

“I don’t trust her,” he says. Hardly knows what he’s saying now—it’s pouring straight from his heart to his lips. “I don’t even think I love her, gods, I—I like the way she listens to me, and the way she defies everyone, and I respect her, and she’s glorious in bed… but I can’t, I couldn’t truly love her. She’s too dangerous. She’s my worst enemy—she knows how to play me like a deck of cards and she’ll use it. I could never marry her. To live with her, watching my back every second, it’d—gods, it would kill me before my time… even if she didn’t stab me in the back one night.”

Elva’s face is shining with triumph.

“And what of your wife?” she asks.

“I think I can mend it with her,” Roran babbles. “I—I want to, I want to make it right. We used to be in love, we used to be happy. I want to go back to that.”

Elva puts a finger to her lips, silencing him. Without a word, Murtagh turns to the bed and puts his hand over the queen’s brow. He whispers the spell and stands rigid for a few tense moments before relaxing and taking his hand away.

“Her blood is clean,” he says, “and the wound closed.”

“Thank you,” says Roran, although he’s not sure he should be thanking them for making him cry like this. “What will you have as a reward?”

“She wakes,” says Elva, who has gone back to ignoring him.

Roran goes to Katrina’s side. Her eyelids are fluttering, and as he watches, she yawns as though waking from a restful sleep.

“How do you feel, Trina?” he asks tenderly.

She sits up slowly, looking up into his eyes.

Then she slaps him, with all her strength.

“Betrayed,” she says. “I feel betrayed, you adulterous bastard.” And without waiting for an answer, she struggles out of bed and flees to her dressing closet, slamming the door behind her.

Roran utters a foul word. It seems Katrina was not as asleep as he had thought during that conversation.

Hearing quiet laughter, he looks up at the doorway. Murtagh and Elva are grinning at each other—that scene having no doubt been of their orchestration.

“You asked what reward we would have,” Elva says, her voice as merry as he’s ever heard it. “I believe that was our reward. Thank you kindly, Your Majesty.”

And with that, the two of them are gone.

 (half psychotic sick hypnotic

got my blueprint it’s symphonic)

VII.

i want your love

and i want your revenge

i want your love

i don’t want to be friends

eka fyst onr amore

un eka fyst onr hefnd

eka fyst onr amore

neo fyst waíse fricaya 

Angela figures it out, in the end.

It probably wasn’t even hard, Birgit thinks in resignation. Since leaving the castle she’s been at her worst—moody, snappish, and taciturn. She avoids questions about the cause of her bad mood, and goes out every morning asking if there’s any news from the capital. As soon as the queen’s illness and subsequent recovery become common gossip, the game is up. Angela is batty, but she’s no fool.

“Birgit,” she says seriously, over a quiet cup of tea in Nolfavrell’s guest parlor, “why did you want Katrina to die?”

Birgit chokes a little, but recovers quickly and arranges her face into an ice-queen mask. “If you’ve put that much together, it’s a wonder you don’t yet know.”

Angela is silent for a moment, sipping pensively. Then she says, “You’re in love with the king, aren’t you?”

“Brava,” Birgit says bitterly. “Your powers of deduction are a credit to your mind-reading cat.”

Solembum’s red eyes widen innocently.

“Ah, you caught us. But really, you can’t fault me for cheating,” Angela says, with a hard edge to her airy tone. “Not when your behavior has tossed fair play right out the fifth-floor window and watched it smash into a million pieces in the courtyard.”

“I am sorry,” Birgit murmurs. “About my treatment of you at least. You’re no pawn in other people’s games, and it was wrong of me to use you as such.”

“You’d do well to remember it,” Angela says sharply. Then she sighs. “So. You love the King. How, may I ask, did this come about?”

“I started by trying to destroy his marriage,” Birgit begins—and, in her usual succinct and blunt manner, tells Angela everything.

“I thought getting Katrina out of the way would solve it all,” she concludes. “I thought he’d feel the same.” She puts down her tea to wrap her arms around herself. “And the worst part is I don’t know if I can live without him now. I love him, gods, I love him…if Katrina’s healed, I don’t know where that puts us.”

“They were saying, down in the marketplace, that Elva and Murtagh came to heal her,” Angela says. “Those two wouldn’t’ve come of their own accord. He had to have sent for them, which means he didn’t want Katrina to die… and that means, I think, that you have gravely miscalculated.”

“Do you think he realizes what I did? That I invited you away on purpose?”

“My dear, you’re not in love with a moron,” Angela says. “Of course he knows. And I’ll bet my best hallucinogenic herbs that he is going to be angry about it.”

Birgit hisses a series of rude words she learnt on a pirate ship. Solembum puts his ears back and yowls.

“Do you think I had better go back and talk to him?” she asks.

“That depends on how angry he is. Do you want to talk to him with or without your head still attached to your shoulders?”

Birgit groans. A part of her is urging her to forget all about him—go back to Tierm and pretend he’s still merely an acquaintance she hasn’t seen in nine years. But the greater part would gladly be decapitated if it meant she could see him again.

So she compromises. “Will you take a letter to him, when you go back to the castle?” she asks.

Angela considers. “Will I get to read it?”

“No!” Then Birgit sees the look on her face. “Oh, all right then. But if you tell a soul—”

“Would I?” Angela asks virtuously.

Birgit rolls her eyes.

“It’s a deal,” the witch says finally, “if you promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“If it comes down to breaking your heart or his,” Angela says, staring Birgit down, “break yours.”

***

Two weeks later, Birgit has settled back into her Tierm townhouse and is beginning to sort through the swamp of undone business that’s accumulated in her absence. It appears no one can do anything if she doesn’t breathe down their necks the entire time, but she doesn’t mind the extra workload. It takes her mind off of other things—like, for instance, the fact that her letter has gone utterly unanswered.

The only letters she’s gotten since returning home are as follows: a short and scratchy note from Robin that she was clearly forced to write when she wanted to be playing outdoors; a longer letter from Maris thanking her for her visit and saying how good it was to see her, &c.; a postscript at the end of Maris’s letter saying “Love you Mother and please do come back when the baby’s born” from Nolfavrell; and a few lines from Angela stating that Roran is angry as a hornet whose nest just got sat on by a Nagra, and that she’d better keep her distance for now.

The affair is over. Birgit knows that, after this, he’ll never fully trust her again. And Katrina, damn her, will probably outlive both of them and be healthy as a horse for the rest of her life.

But she can’t help wishing. Can’t help waking at night wishing he was next to her.

Can’t help loving him.

“Lady Shrrg,” says her assistant, tapping respectfully on the doorframe as he steps into her workspace.

“Yes, Ferant, what is it?”

“It’s just that there’s a gentleman here to see you,” says Ferant, tugging nervously at his cravat, “who looks an awful lot like the King.”

Birgit drops her quill, which blots ink all over page thirteen of her very important trade reports. The accountants are going to have her head for destroying their records, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“Show him in,” she orders. Her hand trembles and she gets ink on her wrist. He’s here. Oh dear gods.

She tries to compose herself, but it can’t be done.  She’s never felt so discomposed in her life. Facing him will be like facing the pirate leader and her husband and her father, all rolled into one and feeling very displeased to boot.

“Birgit.”

And he’s there. In the doorway. Looking straight at her, face set in stone.

She stands to receive him. “Roran.”

Her instinct is to go to him, to invite him into her embrace—but his stiff posture tells her she had better not.

“Will you sit?” she manages, despite a suddenly dry mouth.

He does, keeping the desk between the two of them. Birgit looks down, not knowing what to say. He is unhelpfully silent, waiting for her to start.

“I’m sorry,” she offers finally. “What I did was cowardly and stupid. I ought to have asked your feelings on the matter before I acted rashly.”

“This can’t go on,” he says abruptly. “You understand, don’t you?”

She shrugs helplessly.

“Katrina knows,” he tells her. “I didn’t mean for her to find out, but it was—an accident.” He takes a deep breath. “She was very angry, but we’ve talked it over and we agreed to try and fix things. For the children, if nothing else.”

“Do you love her after all?” Birgit asks, her mouth twisting sardonically.

“I don’t love her the way I once did,” Roran says. “But she is my wife, and for that I owe her respect and fidelity despite what my heart has come to feel. I should have realized that before things got out of hand between us.”

“Then tell me this,” Birgit says. “Did you love me?”

Roran pauses. “I loved what I thought you were,” he says. “I loved the woman who survived the pirate attack, the woman who knew just what I’ve been through… but the woman who would let her old friend’s daughter die for vengeance, I don’t know her at all.”

“For what it’s worth,” says Birgit quietly, “I still love you. All of you. Even the coward who goes back to a woman he doesn’t love just because it’s the proper thing to do.”

“Don’t, Birgit,” he says, rising to go. “Don’t make this worse.”

She follows after him, catching his arm. “One last goodbye kiss. Please.”

He kisses her without hesitation, long and gentle. When he pulls away, he whispers, “I promised Katrina I wouldn’t do that.”

“Goodbye,” Birgit says. Her voice shakes with oncoming tears.

He pauses in his exit. “Ah, don’t,” he says. “Crown of thorns, pömnuria fricai. Stand straight.”

“No,” Birgit says, recognizing the ancient word. “Never friends, Roran. With us, it’s enemies or lovers.”

“That’s a shame,” he says, brushing his knuckles against her cheek one last time. “I would have liked to remember you as a friend.”

 (eh, eh, there’s nothing else i can say

i wish you never looked at me that way)