The parley would probably have proceeded with far more alacrity had I not insisted that Tchanu be allowed to sit at the table. Even my own argued with me about it, if with less acrimony and more concern. “Don’t you think she’ll set the proceedings back?” Ivy asked me. “They remember her as the tyrant of Nudain!”

“She was a lesser tyrant than most any other elf on the Archipelago,” I said, washing my face in the bowl on the stand. The water was scented with jasmine. “She did not torture anyone a-purpose.”

“Just by implication,” Kelu said.

“By thoughtlessness,” I said. “She had power and did not realize that her whims inspired fear in those who dared not disobey them. But she has fought alongside foreign humans now, and she knows, of a certainty, that there will no longer be a Serala like the one she ruled. More importantly, the elves think of me as a usurper, Amhric as an unwelcome figurehead, and Iset as a human sympathizer. Tchanu will appeal to those elves who still remember Serala’s culture with fondness. If we can convince her to convince them to change, then we have a good chance of saving them. Otherwise, they will fall back into old habits, and be sentenced by whatever judicial system I pray we have in place before someone decides vigilantism is preferable to rule of law.” I wiped my dripping brow and sighed. “Trust me, my own, I would much prefer we have only the mildest of personalities at the table. But if we are to have any hope of uniting what remains of the elven populace and binding them to whatever we decide here, then the old guard needs a voice. Tchanu must be there.”

This background I shared with Chester later, who agreed with me. “It’ll be harder in the beginning, but you’ll win points with everyone. Eventually.” He grinned at my expression and said, “If it was easy, Locke, everyone would play.”

I snorted. “And that is why I am sending you off to be my lead negotiator. Go forth, sir, and do my works.”

We had to wait in the hall for him to finish laughing before we could enter the room.

Chester was right: Tchanu had not expected me to remember her, much less to bring her to the negotiations as a principal party. Throughout the first session, which consisted mostly of introductions, she kept glancing my way as if waiting for me to pull her up short. When I did not, she cautiously joined the discussion, and showed admirable restraint in not being too forward with her desires or opinions. The humans explained their needs, which were just, and their demands, which were rather less so. The genets spoke little, save to request more calm. Iset and I advocated for the elves, and I thought her hurt expressions far more devastating than any logic I advanced on our behalf, no matter how pragmatic. Other than Galen and Basilia, the humans at the table were not accustomed to elves who grew teary-eyed when hearing described the torments endured by humanity, nor did they expect any elf to agree that they deserved restitution for these horrors. Iset, I thought, would save us, if only by keeping everyone else so off balance they forgot to cling to their grudges.

After we adjourned, I chivvied my own from my room and prepared it for my guest. I did not have to wait long, for Tchanu requested entrance before I’d had time to pour the sweet citrus waters and set out the pillows. She stopped at the threshold, waiting for the guards who’d accompanied her to evanesce. Once the door closed, she faced me, so like Amoret in her pride… and so unlike her in her uncertainty.

“Tchanu,” I said. “Sit, please.” I handed her a glass after she’d settled on one of the pillows and took the one opposite her. “You are surprised to be succored, I am guessing.”

A hesitation. Then she said, “I expected you to abandon me, my prince.”

“Because it’s what you would have done?”

This pause was longer. “Because it would have been expedient,” she said at last. “To sacrifice me to the humans to save the rest of your party, and the king.”

“A poor prince I would be if I was willing to do that casually, and to someone who had lately proven herself to me.”

“Have I?” She set the glass down, her hand shaking, and then smoothed her palm on her knee. “I fought at your side, Morgan Locke. But I had to.”

“Once the dead came, yes,” I said. “But prior to that, you defied Suleris to stand with me.”

“Suleris was my rival. I was glad to see someone cut them down.”

“And why hadn’t you done so?” I asked. “You had the time, prior to the eruption of... all this.” I waved a hand to encompass where we were and all that had changed.

She looked away, shoulders tense. “It would have been… messy. To fight them. Such a war… many would have died, even immortal as we were before. An ugly fight, and at the end of it, what sort of victory? I would have ruled the Archipelago complete, but I would have had to build my throne on too many bodies.”

“The bodies of your enemies.”

“They were rivals,” she said, stressing the word. “Not enemies.”

I snorted. “Thameis would have disagreed.”

“Thameis was a brute,” Tchanu said curtly. “Who loved violence for its own sake. I don’t love violence, Prince Locke. Power, yes. I find power very pleasing. It chafes me to be forced to watch others do badly what I know I do well, and I lead well. But violence?” She shook her head. “You and I have lately seen the ultimate in violence. A battlefield between the dead and the living… the only more senseless scene would be the dead killing the dead. That is what it comes to in the end. Corpses.”

“You ask why I came back for you, then?”

“Because I abhor violence?” She snorted. “It can’t be only that.”

“No,” I admitted. I heard the rattle of dice again, a laugh in my ear, teasing, intimate. “I took a chance. That you were not as inflexible as to shun humans and genets in this new world where they must be our equals.” I lifted a brow. “You are capable of admitting them into the circles of power where you move?”

“I suppose I must be,” she said. She smiled a little. “I never disliked humans. Or genets.”

“According to the humans here, you liked them rather too well.”

“You say this, who have a human to your side?”

I sipped my water, refusing my first flush of anger. She was a product of her culture. She had to be taught. I was here to see if she was able to receive that teaching. “Would you have married any of the humans you were so fond of?”

“Of course not,” she replied, startled. And then frowned at me. “And you are planning to do so? It is not a fecund alliance.”

“The royal gifts do not pass directly through the blood,” I said. “Obviously, or Sedetnet wouldn’t have spent centuries destroying them in the populace. There will be another prince and king, Tchanu.” I grinned. “If you marry well, they may even be born of you.”

She huffed, but she also leaned back, relaxing. “So what would you?” At my look, she gestured with a hand, absent. “You fished me from the cell and put me at the table for some purpose, I assume. May I know the mind of my prince?”

“That depends,” I said. “Am I your prince, Tchanu? Or am I simply, once again, the convenient choice?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You ask me a question knowing full well that there is no way I can answer to your satisfaction.”

“Do I?”

“Of course.” Her frown grew more pronounced. “I am no stripling, Prince. Trust is not something won in a day. It must be demonstrated. It must be earned.”

“No,” I said quietly. “No, Tchanu. Like love, trust is an act, and it is continually in the doing. It is forever fresh, and forever renewed, and it begins with a commitment to that act. Will you then commit to me and your king? Will you meet my eyes here in this room and say words, and make those words into sacred vow with the intent in your heart?”

Her breath caught.

I remembered a conversation beneath an oak, and the woman who’d reminded me there of uncertainties and promises and painful truths about the future. Perhaps I had loved the university, not for its protection from the world I’d feared I would never enter... but because in my heart I acknowledged the glorious and terrible truth that we were never finished works. That we could never rest, because this life was our school, and the moment we ceased to learn, we abdicated our responsibilities to each other, and to God. Quietly, I finished, “You cannot know the future, Tchanu, and neither can I. That is what makes our promises to each other in this moment meaningful. Because we will give those promises in full acceptance of that uncertainty.”

“And you,” she said, low. “You will also make one.”

“I am your prince, Tchanu. If you accept me, then you know I will never leave you in any cell I can free you from. And few cells will not open to me.”

“No,” she breathed. “No, I believe you.” She closed her eyes, fisting her hands on her knees, and when she lifted her her head I knew before she met my gaze that she was mine. “Then you are my prince, Morgan Locke.”

“And you are my liegewoman.”

She lowered her head and in that silence we both composed ourselves. After a sip of her water, taken from a glass that trembled, she said, “So, then. What is it you want of me at that table?”

“I want you to speak for the elves,” I said. “What else?”

Tchanu lost her next words in a gurgle of laughter that made her sound the maiden she’d professed to no longer be, and it was charming. I suddenly thought that there must have been lovers who’d liked her, no matter her race. “That’s all! I would have done so anyway!”

“Yes,” I said. “But now, alas for you! You must do so in the full understanding that what I want is a Serala where elves, genets, and humans are all free to live their lives—in peace and without threat of violence. The life you knew here is ended, Tchanu. I will not countenance it resurfacing.”

“I understand,” she said. “And... if I may be crass... then I will say that it doesn’t need to again. What we made here was... a...”

“Expedient solution?” I offered dryly.

She winced. “Yes. We needed energy. The enchantment gave us the means to steal it. But we can neither steal the essence of others anymore, nor do we require it. We are free again.”

“And you mean to tell me that there will not be elves who miss being able to steal more energy than they would have been born with?”

This grimace was more pronounced, but she answered nevertheless. “There will be, I’m sure. But short of inviting demons into themselves, they won’t be capable of the act. And who, having fought the dead, will want to risk that? And if you ask me ‘what of the elves who did not see it?’ then I will say....” She trailed off, then shrugged. “Send them to Vigil and put them to work dragging the revenants from the battlefield to the bonfires. If that work does not dissuade them, then they were bound for evil anyway.”

“Oh!” I laughed. “Oh, Tchanu. Brilliant! We shall do that as soon as we finagle a truce out of these people.”

“Do you think we can?” she asked.

“We will, because I’m not leaving without one.”

“Can it be done?” I asked Chester later, when it was safe to betray doubt.

He laughed. “We’ve done harder things. But not, I think, things that have taken longer.”

“Time I have,” I said, blowing out a breath. “Go get me my truce.”

So began a slog that felt far more interminable than our battle against the dead. Though not as volatile as Diantha, Ikaros remained obdurate in response to pleas; his counterpart from Ekadet, Jonthil, was easily agitated and the mere presence of elves at the table seemed sufficient to aggravate his nervous disposition. Davor, representing Suleris, was cautious but more open to compromise, but he was outnumbered by the other two humans. And while Iset was willing to make concessions that would have beggared Serala’s treasury (if treasury it even had!), Tchanu was less conciliatory. Like Davor, she was willing to bargain, but not to beg for clemency.

I remained as aloof as possible from the proceedings, because my word must be taken as law by the elves... and I wanted them to feel they’d had some hand in the proceedings. There would be resentment aplenty between elves and humans when we left Nudain; I did not want to compound it with resentment between the elves and their prince. Amhric, they would probably forgive anything. But it was not Amhric who would be engaged in the day to day affairs of the court.

Chester gamely took to the field every day, and if the battle was bloodless it was no less ferocious for that. The humans were determined to procure not just guarantees of safety, but also of sovereignty, and if they had their way there would be no Serala, but two separate countries sharing the same archipelago. I did not like to imagine the years of argument that would see the resources, cities, and wealth of the kingdom split between the two parties; worse, I could not imagine it prospering. If perhaps we could separate the two nascent countries... but to have them existing in proximity on these islands? There would be no peace, only a deferment of the conflict that was already consuming the Archipelago.

My goal was to end that conflict. And for that, we needed one Serala. Chester agreed; so did Tchanu and, after some convincing, Iset. Davor I thought would vote with us if his fellows weren’t so fiercely opposed... but he had been born to service in one of the most depraved of elven blood-flags, and it was hard for him to set aside the decades of experience that shaped his perception of elven behavior.

Put simply, they didn’t trust us.

They had no reason to.

Two weeks into the process, at the end of one particularly grueling session that had dragged on far too long, Diantha slammed her hand on the table and said, “There’s no point to this! We will never, never give up our liberty to elves again! You can talk and talk and talk all you want, but what you want, we can’t give you!”

“They’re not asking for your freedom,” Chester said with commendable, if weary, patience.

“No,” Jonthil said. “They’re asking for our trust. And it has never been a good idea to trust an elf.”

Tchanu, who had fallen silent for the past half hour, roused herself then. “A wise man once said to me—” Eyes flicking toward me now, “—that trust is a promise, renewed every day by the acts of those who pledge it.”

“Maybe it is,” Ikaros said. “But I don’t see any elf trusting a human right now.” He held up a hand. “No, not here, talking about what might be. I mean right now. In some meaningful way.”

“You’re talking to two elves who lately trusted their lives to humans who fought demons and walking corpses,” Kelu said dryly.

“And what proof have we of that?” Diantha demanded.

“And what does it matter?” Ikaros said. “That was an extraordinary situation. When you’re about to die, you’ll take all the help you can get, no matter where it comes from.”

“That is manifestly not true,” a much exasperated Galen said from behind Iset’s shoulder. “People will cheerfully go to their doom to avoid accepting help from people they despise. As you should know.”

“I stand by my words!”

I held up my hands for silence, and when granted it, looked at Davor. “Are they right?”

Davor contemplated his fellows, who stilled themselves for his regard—they did not agree with him, but they respected him, almost despite themselves. For a man to live to Davor’s age among elves denoted an ability to navigate the caprice of elven society and survive, and this commanded admiration even among the most grudging of humans. He measured them, then said to me, “I think so, lord prince.”

“Then,” I said, “I shall prove it.”

“You’ll what?” Jonthil said, confused.

“You asked for proof that an elf might trust a human... under ordinary circumstances. I shall supply this proof.” I rose. “Make ready for departure. We are leaving for Erevar in the morning.”

“Leaving for... but.. why?” Ikaros stood. “Locke?”

“Prince Locke,” Chester said. “I’m the only one allowed to call him Locke. Here, anyway.”

“Pack your things,” I said as I left. “You’ll be gone a week.”

Outside in the hall, Chester and Kelu caught up with me. It was the latter who said in Lit, “What are you planning?”

“A demonstration,” I said. “As promised.” I eyed Chester and added, “You said I would have to be involved.”

“You also said it was mine to do, so now I fear you are involving me in this plan...!”

“I am. But it will work best if it is a surprise.”

Chester sighed, chuckled. “How many ways can this go wrong, I wonder. Dare I ask?”

I grinned at him. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

He shook his head. But he also didn’t ask.