Duke Ryonic was a patient man, contrary to popular opinion. He knew most within the Sunset Court considered him a brute, a soldier risen above his station by the strength of his arm and a willingness to dispatch whoever stood in his way, but he let them think what they wished.

He was the son of a pig farmer and had spent over a decade campaigning in the east. Nothing taught patience like war, as far as the duke was concerned, and he had learned war's brutal lessons well. The aristocrats and rulers that littered the Sunset Kingdoms believed him a fool that dispensed with the niceties of politics because he had no patience for it, but that wasn't true at all.

He simply acknowledged his ignorance. He had no talent for decoding the tangled webs of alliances that the Sunset Kingdoms functioned under, and so allowed them to think him uninterested as he sat in stony silence alone at the summits – when he deigned to attend at all, that is. He let the others mingle and manoeuvre while he made a target of himself; the fool that thought he could stand alone.

In reality, the duke had simply found a far more competent ally to lean on. Varice, his spymaster, slipped through the crowd of dignitaries like she was born to a ballroom. A lie, though. He had found her little better than a peasant herself. The youngest daughter of an indebted noble from the sultanate, she'd had precious few options for her life other than drudgery.

He had changed that, picked her up from the dirt and given her hope, and what a choice that had been. While he squatted atop his ill-fitting chair like a gargoyle, drawing attention and scorn in equal measure, she flitted through the room and learned the plans of his enemies from their very lips.

He wouldn't normally attend such a summit, deep within the heartlands of the Sunset Kingdoms, and indeed he had not done so for many years. After the rebellion, he had cemented his hold over the Western Marchlands, and while none were particularly pleased to have him in charge of the West, they accepted it.

That was enough for him. He'd held power for over a decade now, and time had a way of cementing one's legacy more than sweet words and subtle gestures. Or so he had found, at any rate.

Varice caught his eye and gestured with her head to a balcony. He rose, drawing a few eyes, and then strode towards the window with purpose. If everyone was determined to think him an impatient fool, then why not help them along with that assessment? It never hurt to be underestimated.

His spymaster gave him a nod, and once they were ensconced on the private balcony overlooking the admittedly beautiful city of Talneevar, she turned to face him. A brief moment of focus from her, and then a seam split the air between them. She stepped forwards without hesitation, parting reality like a curtain as she pulled open the air itself to vanish within the dark fold she had created in the world.

The duke followed a moment later, and found himself in a small tower, bookshelves lining the walls and a set of stone steps spiralling to the roof high above. Varice spoke as soon as he entered, and he let her words wash over him before replying.

"The Sage has sent word – another is arriving imminently."

He nodded. "How soon?"

"Weeks," Varice replied. "She cannot know for certain, but she has the location almost exactly; an abandoned church at the foot of the Unclaimed Peaks. I have it marked."

The duke frowned. "How is that she can predict to the mile the arrival point, but not the exact date?"

Varice nodded, as if a question she had asked herself. She likely had. "The Sage is reluctant to discuss the nature of her class, but from what she has let slip I believe that the timing and location are in constant conflict. The more specific the sense of one, the more vague the other."

The duke hummed to himself a moment before nodding. "It would match the pattern of the previous tips she has given us," he said before sighing. "No matter. I cannot spare the men – Decker and Harman are the only two I would trust for something like this, and both are recovering from our last ill-fated sojourn into Storm's Harbour. We'll need to consider other options."

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Varice sucked her teeth – a nervous gesture from her childhood that she only let those she trusted see. Or perhaps that was another deception, another attempt at manipulation to get him to trust her more than he already did.

It didn't matter to the duke though, since he already commanded her loyalty well enough. To him, she was a most trusted advisor and valued confidant. To the others in the Sunset Court though? She was lowborn. An outsider, possibly other epithets and slurs depending on the strange customs each principality held to. In short; she had nowhere better to go.

"The Lions?" she asked, and he nodded gravely.

"Yes, loathe as I am to involve them. You have a contact in the academy, do you not?"

It was her turn to nod, though she seemed hesitant.

"Speak your mind," he said with a wave.

"I am not the only one with such contacts – I suspect all of the major kingdoms within the Court have them, probably with deeper penetration than I, so it will be… difficult to disguise our activities."

The duke looked to the ceiling, tracing the spiral of that rickety-looking staircase. It didn't matter that it was made of the same solid stone as the rest of this tower – Skills didn't have to conform perfectly to common logic.

"You told me many years ago that we could track The Butcher reliably," he began, and waited for an answer from Varice.

She frowned in confusion. "Yes, I recall."

"Is that still true?" he asked.

"Yes," she confirmed once again, "but again, the problem is not finding her. We could track her halfway across the continent if needed, but we have nobody capable of taking her out. That is likely more the case now than it was years ago. Why?"

"We don't need to disguise our actions for long. The excavation is only a few months from complete, and if we can obtain the God-Touched soon…"

"I don't follow," Varice said, and he took a selfish moment to relish the feeling of knowing something she didn't. It wasn't often the case when dealing with a spymaster, after all.

"We use The Butcher as cover. She and her companions are mercenaries, correct?" he let the hook dangle before her for a few more moments before confirming his intentions. "We hire them."

Varice looked at him like he was crazy for several heartbeats, but then that brilliant mind of hers began to whir to life, and she smiled.

"Easy enough to create a contract near the Unclaimed Peaks. It doesn't even have to be legitimate – I have plenty of intermediaries that I can burn some favours with."

She began pacing as the plan spooled out from her mind, and her hands rose to bat the invisible thread around like a cat as possibilities and problems simultaneously occurred to her and were solved.

"It will have to be close by, and how will our team break away? But no, we send a full complement. The Butcher will deal with any that get too close, and we leave a small team to divert to collect the God-Touched. Yes, it could work. It will be expensive though."

The duke smiled. "Our coffers are not empty, and if all goes well, this will be nothing more than a minor downpayment on our rise to power. Consider your budget functionally unlimited in this regard."

A dangerous thing to give a subordinate, but Varice was a smart girl, and she also had a thorough understanding of what was within his means. They could not simply hire a 4th tier mercenary to take out The Butcher, as tempting as that was. The price would be astronomical, only able to be shouldered by the largest empires on Tsanderos. For a paltry kingdom in the back end of the continent, they could simply not afford the extravagance. But a few teams of Crimson Lions? That was an expense the treasury could bear.

"Who do you want leading this mission?" she asked.

"I leave that to you. It may be best to allow some of the other powers to jockey for position and assign their own assets within the Lions to lead the expedition as a whole, but I want Francis D'Sware to lead the team going for the God-Touched."

Varice nodded, moving to one of the bookshelves that bracketed the circular tower. She picked a book seemingly at random and leafed through the pages until she came to a list of names. She traced a finger down and then cursed quietly.

"He is on assignment in Colchet. Closer than us, but diverting him away will be obvious to any of our more astute rivals. The sultanate in particular have been sniffing around as of late, and I would not trust to the discretion of the Lions' leadership in this matter, despite their claims of independence."

"I leave that up to you then," he said with a final nod. "If there is nothing else, then I will return to my duties."

Varice gave him a smile as he turned. "Are there any members of the Court you haven't glowered at already today?" She waved a hand and summoned the seam in reality that separated this Skill-conjured room from the true world outside.

"A ruler's job is never over, it seems," he said with a smile of his own, and then his face closed off once again and the gargoyle returned once more to his roost, leaving his spymaster to the real work in the background.

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