"Precisely. We have our theories, of course, but the consensus seems to be that she's merely biding her time until she can plan a full-scale invasion of the Seelie Kingdom, with little chance of failure."
Silverdun actually gasped. "Is this possible?"
"Our best guess is that within a year, given our understanding of her troop movements and placement of her cities, we would be powerless to stop it.
Silverdun knit his brow. "You and Everess seem to be in agreement, then. Something must be done. Mab must be stopped by any means necessary. Why not the Shadows?"
Mauritane snorted. "Everess cares about nothing aside from his own position. To him, re-forming the Shadows is part of a strategy to build power for himself. He'll play upon whatever fear, whatever threat is necessary to pursue it. Don't trust him."
"Oh, I never intended to trust him," said Silverdun. "Among nobility, trust is rarer than a hard day's work."
Mauritane chuckled.
"Then you think I should find a way to wriggle out of this? I admit that I have no more confidence in Everess than you do."
"No!" Mauritane almost shouted. "You must accept. You must be a part of this. If he's received approval from Corpus and the queen's blessing, then it's going to go ahead no matter what I do. My best hope is to have someone on the inside, someone who can keep an eye on Everess and his ilk and do his best to ensure that the needs of the kingdom come before his ambition."
"And to report back to you."
"Yes."
The whole thing was beginning to seem hopelessly tangled. But Silverdun could see in Mauritane's eyes that war was not a hypothesis. It was a certainty. A war that could not be won.
"Do you think the Shadows can change things?"
"I certainly hope so. If you do the right things. I shudder to think what those things might be." Mauritane looked down at his hands. "And by allowing it to go forward, not fighting it, then I share an equal measure of guilt in whatever those things may be."
"We do what must be done," said Silverdun.
"Then do this thing, Silverdun." Mauritane looked him in the eye. "Make sure that the end justifies the means." This was not a request. This was an order, with the full weight of Mauritane's Gift of Leadership behind it. Ordinarily, Silverdun would have been offended at the hint of manipulation that went into such a thing, but in this case he supposed it was forgivable.
"Don't worry, Mauritane. I'll keep all of my most heinous acts to myself."
"No," said Mauritane. "You'll tell me everything. I want to know exactly what it is that I need to be forgiven for."
"And Paet. What's your opinion of him?"
"We've crossed paths once or twice over the past year. From aught that I can tell, he's a good man, if a bit strange. But I wouldn't trust him, either."
Silverdun left the Barrack feeling deeply uneasy. He watched the pretty Fae stroll up and down the Promenade, shading their eyes from the sun under parasols. Luxury.
He'd never felt as though he was truly a member of Seelie society; he'd always existed on the edge. He could frolic and strut with the best of them, but something about it had always seemed hollow. There was a hole in him that had never been filled.
And now he was about to become part of something that would only set him apart further. But would it fill that hole, or only widen it? No way of knowing.
He squared his shoulders and stepped into the sunlight, merging perfectly with the perambulations of Seelie life.
Everess wanted to use him. The Arcadians wanted to use him. Mauritane wanted to use him. Even the queen herself had her own hooks in.
For a failed monk, Silverdun was beginning to feel extremely popular.
Sailors call the Inland Sea the One True Queen, and when a man joins the crew of a ship on that sea, he takes part in a secret ceremony in which he renounces his allegiance to his native land and swears to pay fealty only to the waves. It's said that a sailor who refuses the oath is certain to drown and fall into the abyss, to float downward into eternity.
Stil-Eret,''At Sail on the Inland Sea;' from Travels at Home and Abroad
Silverdun stood in the bow, gripping the railing and trying to remain steady on his feet. He tried to recall the little cantrip he'd learned in prison to subdue nausea; it was a useful thing to know there, given the quality of the food. The syllables faltered on his tongue-best not to say it rather than foul it up, as it would no doubt make the feeling worse.
The ship was called Splintered Driftwood. All ships of the Inland Sea were so named, the captain had told Silverdun, laughing. In the harbor Silverdun had seen a three-master dubbed This Way to Drowning. Gallows humor, he supposed. Hilarious.
There were five crewmen on the ship, not including the captain; they went through their duties without speaking, ignoring Silverdun completely. When a swell came and tilted the deck up to a sincerely alarming angle, the quiet sailors paid it no notice whatsoever.
He gripped the rail tighter.
The railing was of smooth, polished wood, furbished to a rich luster, secured by gleaming brass fixtures. Silverdun clung to it as though it were the only steady thing in the universe. The harder he clutched, however, the more he felt the rolling gait of the ship beneath him. And if Silverdun looked too long at it, the bile began to stir in him again. He followed the advice he'd been given and fixed his gaze on the island toward which they were headed. It helped a little.
"Enjoying your voyage immensely, I can see," came a smooth voice behind him. Captain Than strolled toward Silverdun, having no trouble crossing the rolling deck. He was of middle age, though it was difficult to tell just how old. As young as forty, maybe as old as sixty. He was trim and broad-shouldered, and had clear green eyes that evoked the surface of the sea.
"I've never enjoyed another more," Silverdun said, scowling.
Than patted him on the shoulder. "That's the spirit," he said. He looked up at the sky. "Long crossing to Whitemount, but not too bad. We'll be there before nightfall."
"With all this wind I'd have thought we'd get there faster," said Silverdun.
"Plenty of wind, yes, but all blowing in the wrong direction, I'm afraid." One of the crewman brushed by Silverdun, pulled hard on a rope, and tied it back. The dance of canvas and rope was a type of wizardry unto itself, one that Silverdun would never comprehend.
"What if," said Silverdun, "I could get the wind blowing in the proper direction? Would that get us there faster?"
"Aye," said the captain, a curious smile working across his face. "That it would."
Silverdun stepped toward the stern of the ship and looked up at the sails. There were two of them, wide and full, canted heavily toward starboard to force the boat across the current of the wind.
Despite his nausea, Silverdun was well rested, full of energy and essence. It would be nice to actually do something. For far too long, he realized, he'd allowed life to simply happen to him. After his long year of military service, Silverdun had been happy to be at play in the court of Queen Titania, wooing every lady-in-waiting he could get his hands on and steadfastly ignoring his duties at Corpus. He'd wanted nothing more than what life handed him.
Unfortunately, Silverdun's uncle, who had been managing his estates of Oarsbridge and Connaugh in his absence, had decided that he'd prefer to be lord himself, and had had Silverdun exiled to the prison of Crere Sulace.
There, he'd been drafted into service by the great Mauritane, and had followed the man on his mission for the queen, barely understanding why he was doing it. They'd landed themselves in the middle of an Unseelie invasion at Sylvan, after Mab had used the Einswrath weapon just to the north, at Selafae. Mauritane had led them into battle, and Silverdun had become a war hero.