The air inside Governor Risha’s private study was thick enough to turn a man’s stomach. It was a putrid blend of expensive tobacco, and the sharp, sour sweat of a man who realized his grip on power was slipping. Risha paced the room’s length, his heavy boots thumping against the polished wood in a rhythmic, angry beat. Each step an explosion of nervous energy with nowhere to go. He came to a halt at his desk, his large hands gripping the edge with such force that his knuckles turned a sickly white.

"How?" Risha roared, the sound of his voice bouncing uselessly off the high stone walls. "How does a massacre happen right in my own courtyard? How do hundreds of people die before my very door while I am told absolutely nothing? And how have we not discovered anything after a full day of interrogations?"

He turned a venomous glare toward the corner of the room. Heidi sat there, perfectly still in a high-backed chair, looking for all the world like a statue carved from ice. Her green dress was spread out around her, and not a single fold was out of place. She didn't bother to look up at him, her attention focused entirely on a small silver tray on the table beside her. With slow, steady movements that seemed designed to irritate, she picked up a crystal decanter and poured out two glasses of wine.

"You are shouting, Risha," she said, her voice a quiet, sharp contrast to his thunderous outburst. "Shouting does not fix the wall. It does not bring back the dead. And it certainly does not impress the Inquisitor who is currently walking through our halls, and rooting through our secrets."

"Don't you talk to me about Ash or your damn secrets!" Risha screamed, slamming his fist onto the desk. The inkwell jumped at the impact, splashing a dark blue drop onto a stack of trade reports. "You kept me in the dark! You and Hoff have been plotting behind my back, making deals and twisting truths. Somehow this whole bloody mess is your fault. And here I sit, the damn ruler of Marchand, and a glorified clown! No more. You have forgotten your place. I am the Governor. I am the Empire’s anointed. Not you! And certainly not that snake in the dungeon!"

Heidi stood up then, moving toward him with a grace that usually made him feel proud, but today it only served to make him feel small and insignificant, and angry. She held out one of the glasses, the liquid inside a dark, bruised purple.

"Drink," she commanded.

Risha glared at the glass for a moment before snatching it from her hand. He took a large, desperate gulp and winced immediately. The wine was bitter and heavy, a cheap vintage from the southern farms. He had always liked it because it reminded him of the rough life he had escaped, but now it tasted like vinegar.

Heidi took a tiny sip of her own glass, her face twitching in a brief, subtle grimace of disgust. She hated this wine; she found it foul and common, much like the people who produced it. But she swallowed it anyway, her eyes never once leaving Risha’s face.

"Better?" she asked.

Risha wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a crude gesture. "No. I want answers, Heidi. I want to know who did this. My security is a joke. The Emperor is going to think I’m a fool."

Heidi leaned against the edge of the desk, crossing her thin arms over her chest. "The Emperor will think exactly what we tell him to think. Risha, look at the facts. A group of foreigners, people from the North, show up in the middle of the night. They are slaughtered by a force that leaves no trail. Who benefits from such chaos?"

Risha shook his head, his mind spinning in useless circles. "I don't know. Lord Brock? The City Council? They’ve been whining about taxes for months."

"Think bigger," Heidi whispered, her voice dropping. "Think beyond the walls of this city. Who hates the Empire? Who wants to see our border security look like a sieve? Who wants us to turn on each other?"

Risha paused, his anger cooling into a heavy, cold dread. "The Northern Kingdoms."

"King Casam," Heidi said, the name sounding like a curse on her lips. "He is a man of myths and shadows. He has united the tribes. He sees Marchand as the weak point of the Empire’s belly. If he can cause infighting here, if he can make the Emperor doubt your loyalty, the border falls. This wasn't an attack. It was a seed. He planted a garden of corpses to see what kind of war would grow from the dirt."

Risha sat down heavily in his chair, wanting to believe her. It made sense, in a way. It gave him an enemy he could understand, something far away that he could point a sword at. But a small part of him, the part that had survived the streets of Marchand by being suspicious of everyone, wasn't entirely convinced.

"Casam is a ghost," Risha muttered. "How would he get hundreds of his people into the city without anyone seeing them?"

"Money," Heidi replied simply. "Even the most loyal guard has a price. Especially now, when the grain is thin and the winter is coming."

Before Risha could respond, there was a sharp knock at the door. It swung open, and Lord Hoff stepped into the room. The security chief looked different than he had early that morning; he looked satisfied, almost smug. There was a dark smear of something on his cuff, and his eyes were bright with a cruel, flickering light.

"My Lord, my Lady," Hoff said, bowing low. "I bring news that will settle the unrest."

Risha stood up, his interest piqued. "Tell me you found the man who let them in."

"Better than that," Hoff said. He reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of parchment. It was crumpled and stained with red thumbprints. "I have taken Lord Brock into custody. After a very... thorough conversation, he has provided a full written confession. He admitted to conspiring with Casam’s Northern agents to destabilize your rule, Risha. He wanted the Council to take over the grain trade once the Emperor removed you for incompetence."

Risha stared at the paper but didn't take it. "Brock? You’re telling me that fat, stuttering fool orchestrated a massacre? He can barely coordinate a dinner party!"

"He had help," Hoff said, his voice smooth and oily. "But the signature is his. I have him in the pit now. We can hang him in the morning. We can do it right in front of Inquisitor Ash. It will show the Empire that you are swift, decisive, and that the rot has been cut out."

Risha’s face turned red, his cooled anger burning bright once more. "This is a worthless lie, Hoff! You’ve hated Brock since he overruled your worthless plans in the council last spring. You’re using this chaos to kill a rival. You think I’m blind? Do you think the Inquisitor is blind?"

Hoff’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second, his eyes darting to Heidi before returning to the Governor. Risha saw the flash of discomfort and felt a surge of petty triumph; he had hit a nerve.

"I am doing what is necessary for the safety of the city," Hoff said, his voice tightening. "Brock was a loud voice of dissent. Now, he is a symbol of treason. Does it matter if he is the hand that held the knife? He is the neck that fits the noose."

"It matters to me!" Risha shouted. "If we hang a member of the City Council on flimsy evidence, the people will riot! The Inquisitor will see through a forced confession in a heartbeat!"

Heidi stepped forward, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "Risha, stop."

Risha turned to her, ready to argue, but the look in her eyes stopped him cold. It was a look of pure, hard logic.

"What’s done is done, we can still use this. We can make Lord Brock into an excellent scapegoat," Heidi said. She didn't even look at Hoff; she looked only at her husband. "He is unpopular with the merchants. He is seen as a weak link. By naming him, we buy ourselves time. We give the Inquisitor a body to take back to the capital. It stops the questions. It stops the digging."

"But it’s a fantasy!" Risha cried, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Ash isn't a child. He’ll know. He was just in here looking for the bastard, he already suspects we had something to do with his disappearance, and it turns out we have! What do you think he will do when we tote out Lord Brock before the whole city for a hanging?"

"Ash wants a result," Heidi countered. "He doesn't care about the truth any more than we do. He wants to go back to Klejnot and tell the Emperor that the problem is solved. If we give him a Councilman’s head, he can claim victory. If we give him nothing, he stays here. He stays and he looks into our books. He looks into your past, Risha. Do you want him doing that?"

Risha felt the air leave his lungs. He looked at the wine-stained reports on his desk, then at the shadows lengthening in the corners of the room. He felt trapped between his wife’s ambition and Hoff’s cruelty. He hated how easily they agreed, and he hated that they were talking over him as if he were barely a part of the conversation.

"I’ve always despised the Council," Heidi continued, her voice sounding bored. "Their little elections, their talk of 'the people.' It’s a waste of time. With Brock gone, the Council will fall apart. They will be too afraid to speak. We can finally run this city the way it should be run. Without the pretense of oversight from the lower classes."

Hoff nodded eagerly. "Exactly, my Lady. It simplifies everything."

Risha’s teeth ground together, the sound audible in the quiet room. He felt a hot, bubbling urge to strike something, to wipe the smug look off Hoff’s face or shake Heidi until she looked at him with something other than calculated pity.

He didn't do it. Instead, he grabbed his empty wine glass and hurled it across the room. It shattered against a large oil painting that hung above the fireplace, a portrait of Risha himself, wearing a golden crown and looking sternly out at his domain. The red wine splashed across the canvas, staining his painted face and running down the neck of his image in long, dark streaks that looked exactly like blood.

"Fine!" Risha spat. "Hang him! Kill them all! See if I care!"

Heidi didn't even flinch at the sound of the breaking glass. She just watched the wine drip from the painting. "Good. Now, let’s discuss the report for the Inquisitor. We must be consistent."

"Wait," Risha interrupted, his voice rasping. "Is there any real suspect? Did we find anything near the wall?"

Heidi sighed, the sound of a woman losing her patience. "As I said, I believe it was King Casam. He wants to stir up trouble between us and the Emperor. He wants to weaken the border. It’s a classic move. He kills a few hundred of his own 'refugees' to make us look like monsters."

Risha wasn't convinced. But he looked at Heidi and Hoff, and he saw that they had already moved on. They didn't care about his doubts; they cared about the map.

"How did they get across the border?" Hoff asked, leaning in. "That’s a long trek for that many people to make without being spotted."

Heidi’s eyes narrowed. "It means someone in the Emperor’s border security has been bought. Someone is letting the North through the mountain passes."

Risha felt a surge of fear. If the border was compromised, Marchand was the first line of defense. And if the North was really coming, a few hanged councilmen wouldn't save them.

"Then we retaliate," Risha said, his voice suddenly loud and shaky. "If Casam wants a war, we give it to him! We send the guards! We burn their border villages! We show them that Marchand isn't a playground for their games!"

Heidi looked at him as if he were a child who had just suggested building a castle out of sand. "We cannot go to war, Risha. We need the Emperor’s blessing to break the treaty. And we certainly don't have the men to invade the North while the city is in this state. A war would ruin us. It would stop the grain flow, and then the Emperor really would have your head."

"So we do nothing?" Risha asked, his face twisting in disgust.

"We use a subtler form of revenge," Heidi said. "We tighten the screws on the trade routes. We seize Northern assets in the city. We lean on our allies in Klejnot, pressure them to move on the Northern Kingdoms on our behalf, weakening both the Emperor’s sway over us, and King Casam’s. We play the game, Risha. We don't just kick the board over."

Hoff nodded. "I can start identifying Northern backed warehouses tonight. There is much profit to be had in security seizures."

Risha looked from one to the other. They were already planning the loot. They were already moving on to the next scheme, and he was standing there, ignored in his own study. He felt a wave of disgust so strong he felt physically sick.

"I’m done," Risha said. He turned and marched toward the door. "I’m done listening to the two of you play at being gods."

"Risha, where are you going?" Heidi called out, her voice finally showing a hint of irritation.

"To find some air that doesn't smell of rot!" Risha shouted back.

Risha stormed past the painting of himself again as he reached the end of the hall, the blood red wine dripping in gentle drops from the base of the frame. The wine was still dripping from his painted chin, landing in red drops on the floor. It looked like the portrait was weeping blood.

It only gave him momentary pause, a brief feeling of dread settled in the pit of his stomach before he slammed the door and continued down the hallway, his pulse still racing.

As he reached the end of the hall he still couldn't shake the feeling of dread. He knew Heidi was smart, but he felt, for the first time, that she had made a mistake. Tricking an Inquisitor like Ash wasn't like tricking a local merchant. Ash was a predator. He would smell the lie on Brock’s confession.

"Fool," Risha hissed, though he wasn't sure if he was talking to the painting or himself.

He passed a guard standing silently by the exit. The man didn't move, didn't even blink. Risha didn't care. He walked out into the cool night air, let out a growl of pure frustration, and smashed a decorative vase against the stone wall. The pieces shattered into the darkness, a small, meaningless bit of destruction in a city that was already falling apart.