Keiser closed his eyes, his back pressed against the stone frame of the doorway, the chill of it seeping into his shoulders. He remained still, outwardly calm, though he could feel the storm brewing on the other side of the door. Olga was there, her presence sharp and bristling, her anger like the sharp end of an arrow being sharpened too close to the ear.

She had been simmering since the moment the princess crossed the threshold and allowed Mr. Genevra to follow her into the parlor. That room was sacred, the same one where she had first welcomed them to the temple, a place for those the princess deemed trustworthy.

Now the sixth princess had invited a man she just met inside. All of this was for a plan the tenth prince had concocted, apparently knowing something that a knight who lived in the capital did not. The fact that the princess humored him made her blood boil.

Olga's jaw worked as though she were grinding stone between her teeth. At last, the fury cracked into a whisper, her voice low but hot enough to sear.

"Why did you let my brother," she hissed, the words nearly bitten in two, "and that other child, why did you let them be the ones by her side right now?"

Her teeth gnashed audibly at the end of it, the sound like iron on iron.

Keiser kept his eyes shut, his face unreadable, as though the question itself had slid past him. But he heard every word. The bitterness in her tone wasn't just anger, it was fear, coiled tight and desperate, because she knew as well as he did that the princess's rooms were not simply safe walls.

They were the heart of the game that was unfolding.

And Olga did not like games where her brother was a piece on the board.

Keiser finally opened his eyes. He slowly turned his head, just enough to catch Olga from the corner of his vision, his expression as calm as stone. His cloak shifted, a subtle motion he was careful to keep from the watchful eye of a nearby knight. The guard, who had been casting wary glances after all of Olga's angry whispering, finally looked away.

Only then did Keiser answer, his voice low and even.

"...because they know you."

The words landed with the weight of an arrow.

Olga froze, her mouth closing so sharply it was as though she had bitten through her own retort. Her jaw tightened until the muscle twitched, and in her silence, her hands went to her weapons, drawing her bowstring taut for a moment, as if testing it, then readjusting the arrows strapped to her back.

Yes, they knew her. Everyone did. The Huntress. The one who could not be hidden or ignored, no matter where she stood. The bearer of a bow strung from the core of a sacred beast, whose arrows struck with a precision. She was not a woman to cross, not if you wanted to keep breathing.

That reputation was her shield and her snare. The men inside the princess's chamber would think twice, even thrice, before trying anything under Olga's watch. They would not dare. And Olga herself knew it. Her presence was both deterrent and promise, one step out of line, and she would rain death on them before they could even draw breath to beg.

But for Keiser, the reassurance was not so simple. Her presence made him think again of what Olga had confessed, the whispers of those who sought the princess, the shadows of enemies who moved to claim her for their own purposes.

This time, he thought, he could use that.

For his plan to work, he needed more than a blade, more than a bow. He needed the fear of danger to spread, to crawl under skin and gnaw at nerves until every man's hand twitched toward his weapon of choice. He needed unrest. He needed suspicion.

He needed to breathe air onto the spark, until the fire caught.

The door creaked open at last.

Out stepped Mr. Genevra, his presence as gaudy as his reputation. He wore a frockcoat of an almost blinding red, the same shade as the long hair pulled neatly into a low ponytail at his back. The fabric gleamed under the morning light as though it were polished, daring anyone to miss him.

Behind him filed his retinue, mercenaries, disciplined in their silence. Keiser's gaze sharpened, measuring them the way a beast measures strangers encroaching on its territory. The cloaks they wore fell heavy over their shoulders, concealing armor and weapons alike, leaving only the sharp lines of their chins and the build of their frames visible.

One stood taller than the rest, broad-shouldered and stiff, with a long dark-brown goatee that framed his mouth like a blade's edge. The other was his opposite, shorter, lean, compact, every movement suggesting speed rather than strength. Together they moved with the unmistakable rhythm accustomed to the job. Keiser filed away each detail in silence, not allowing a single flicker of reaction to betray his thoughts.

Mr. Genevra, however, was anything but restrained. All smiles, he strode out as though the hall belonged to him, and with a flourish, he reached for the princess's hand as she followed him into the corridor.

Her own smile remained serene, sweeter even, as though she were untouched by the man's theatrics. Yet when Genevra leaned low, bowing with exaggerated reverence before pressing his lips to her hand, the display rang hollow to Keiser's eyes.

From his post, Keiser caught the shift beside him. Olga's expression had curdled into disgust, her lips curling and nose wrinkling as if she had caught the stench of something rotten. For a moment, her hand twitched toward her bow, though whether in irritation or the instinct to act, Keiser could not say.

He did not look at her. His gaze stayed fixed on the scene before him, the glittering, smiling mask of Genevra, the mercenaries like shadows at his back, and the princess whose smile was both a spear and a shield.

He exhaled, the beath was now upon the spark.

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