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Each day she would travel until noon, then pause to eat and to train, finding once again her perfect balance with the blade, all the old moves and passes that she had allowed to rust while she indulged her sense of guilt. Each session of bladework cleansed her of another layer of useless distractions, honing her to a point.

She had a purpose now, or rather, the purpose that she had been standing on the brink of for some time had now coalesced.

I want Salme Alain. And the answer came, And you shall have him, but you must perfect yourself until he cannot deny you.

So it was that she found herself at the gates of Castle Leose, under the wary eyes of the guards in shimmering armour.

They sent for Lisan Dea, of course, and the Grasshopper seneschal came out, eventually, to regard Tynisa wearily.

‘You have some message from Lowre Cean?’ she asked grimly.

‘You know why I am here,’ Tynisa told her evenly. Do not make me prove myself to you. A part of her weighed up the woman and found her wanting. She was nothing but a grand clerk, after all.

The Grasshopper stared at her, stepping close enough for Tynisa to impale her just by drawing her rapier from its scabbard, one fluid motion so swift that the guards would barely see it before it was done. The thought played itself out in her mind, and she had to fight against simply letting her body follow suit.

‘Go home,’ said Lisan Dea softly, giving her another of those hidden looks. ‘Lowlander, go home.’

Tynisa smiled keenly. ‘I have no home in the Lowlands. That is why I’ve come here.’

The seneschal opened her mouth to utter some further dismissal, but then a shifting amongst the guards heralded a new arrival. Without fanfare, the princess herself was with them.

‘I thought I recognized the Lowlander girl from my window,’ she remarked. ‘Tell me, why have you taken it upon yourself to turn away our guests?’

Lisan Dea stood very straight, looking ahead and not daring to glance at her mistress. She made no reply.

‘You are a capable enough servant for peacetime, Lisan, but perhaps not fit to act as my seneschal in war. Return inside and contemplate that,’ the princess ordered. Tynisa expected a glare from the Grasshopper as she obeyed, but instead caught an unguarded expression: she read sadness on the face of Lisan Dea, and not as a response to her mistress’s anger.

‘You seek my son, no doubt,’ the lady of the Salmae observed. ‘I have heard about your actions during the hunt, and the Salmae recognize our debts. Come with me.’ She turned and strode inside.

Elass led the girl to her throne room, never once glancing back but confident that mere curiosity would draw the Lowlander after her. She should appreciate that I am doing her a great honour. But these foreigners seemed to have little grasp of propriety, and who could blame them, being bereft of proper rulers, no great familes, no royal blood. They should be congratulated for not declining into utter savagery.

Taking her accustomed seat between the two statues, she saw Tynisa hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

‘Sit,’ she said, the word sounding somewhere between an invitation and an order. Tynisa entered cautiously and Elass saw her eyes flick towards the friezes adorning the walls, all the life-size figures carved in high relief. Noblemen and women of the Commonweal led horses or drew back bowstrings, waged war in elegant mail or played musical instruments. The girl obviously possessed some latent courtesy, Elass decided, for although distracted, she proceeded to the correct position where a petitioner should kneel, and sank to the floor.

For a moment, Elass adopted a stern face, studying this Spider-kinden waif before her. Whitehand is right: something has changed within her. There was now an edge to her that had not been evident before, a purpose. Even sitting, the girl exuded a sense of being kept still only under restraint, and that if her leash were slipped she would explode into violence. And how may I channel that? Elass let her expression lighten, like storm-clouds