it back to her side again. Old Cereus sat in a chair near the door, frowning.
"Thank you, Your Grace," Bernard said. "Love?"
"Invidia came here to try to make a deal."
Everyone simply stared at her in shock, except for old Cereus, who snorted. "That isn't surprising," he said. "It's stupid, but not surprising."
"Why not, Your Grace?" Amara asked. She knew, but if any of the High Lords in the room hadn't worked it out yet, it would better come from one of their own than from her.
Cereus shrugged. "Because for Invidia, life was always about pushing people around like pieces on a ludus board. In her mind, what's going on right now isn't that different from business as usual in Alera. More difficult, more degrading, more unpleasant, but she doesn't understand what losing a loved one..." He cleared his throat. The old man's sons had been killed during High Lord Kalarus's uprising and the initial offensive of the Vord War. "What it can do to a body. How it changes things. Woman's never loved a thing in her life but power."
Amara nodded. "She seeks a more favorable bargaining position. To use whomever she can and abandon whomever she can't."
Phrygius stroked a hand over his roan red beard, musing. "I thought you said that she was trapped in the vord's service. That big bug thing on her chest was the only thing keeping her alive."
"Yes," Amara says. "Which means that she knows or thinks she knows some way to overcome it."
"What did she offer, Countess?" Placidus asked.
Amara told them about the conversation with Invidia. "She said that when we wanted to speak to her, we should send up green signal arrows from her in groups of three. She'll contact us."
Heavy silence followed.
"Do you think she's serious?" Raucus asked. "Tell me you don't think that bitch is serious."
"I think she might be," Lady Placida said slowly.
Phrygius shook his head. "It's a trap."
"Bloody expensive trap," Lord Placida mused. "If that information she gave you is accurate, Countess, we can use it to hurt them badly."
"You aren't thinking like a bloody bug," Raucus said. "She can afford to throw away a million warriors if it means she breaks the back of our heaviest furycraft."
Lady Placida nodded. "And if we deploy our troops to take advantage of the enemy attack, and she's lying to us, the vord will be able to take advantage of us. They'll know where we'll have to put them to counter the attack. If Invidia is lying, they can use that to their advantage."
"Hah," Lord Placida said suddenly.
"Oh," Lord Cereus said, at the same time. "Oh, Countess. I see now. Well played."
"Thank you, Your Grace," Amara said quietly, nodding to each of them.
Raucous scowled, looking back and forth between them. "What?"
"Don't try to figure it out," Phrygius muttered. "You'll hurt yourself."
"You don't know any more than I do," Raucus shot back.
Lady Placida pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and let out a slow, patient exhale. "Countess, please. For my benefit, please explain."
Amara gave Lord Placida a slight bow, and said, "Your Grace, if you would?"
Lord Placida returned her bow, and said, "The Countess has established a situation in which all roads but the last will end in our favor. We can't be sure about the confrontation with the Queen, regardless of what happens. But we can test Invidia's honesty by watching the next vord attack."
"And if she's lying?" Lady Placida asked.
"If she's lying, she's doing it for a reason," Cereus said. "She's doing it because the vord need to create a weakness that they can exploit. We trump her hand by not trying to take advantage of the enemy dispositions in the next attack. We maintain the strength of our defenses as they stand and withdraw to Garrison when the evacuation is complete, just as planned. We give them no chance to exploit us. The outcome of this war is going to hinge on killing the Queen in any case, not simply slaughtering warriors."
Lady Placida nodded slowly, one hand toying idly with the single, long braid of her scarlet-auburn hair. "If the vord come at us the way Invidia says they will, we won't be able to hurt them for it. We'll miss the opportunity."
"But we'll know she's telling the truth about something," Amara said. "We've lost nothing. And no matter what happens, we've gained one piece of what I judge to be reasonably reliable information."
"We know my sister and Araris are alive," Bernard rumbled.