The Silverveil party made camp a mile from the castle, a display of both wealth and caution. Their pavilions were vivid blue silk, fluttering like captured pieces of sky against the grim landscape. Noella counted twenty guards in polished sea-scale armour, twice as many servants, and a baggage train that suggested a long stay.
The envoy did not wait for a formal summons. She arrived at the castle gates the next morning in a lacquered carriage drawn by four white horses. When the steps were lowered, she emerged like a sunbeam cutting through fog.
Princess Selene of Silverveil was perhaps a year older than Noella. Her hair was the colour of wheat-honey, piled in artfully careless curls. Her eyes were a bright, clever green. She wore a gown of layered sea-green and silver, impractical for the muddy yard but stunning in its effect. She moved with a liquid grace that seemed to dismiss the chill.
But Noella's eyes, trained by necessity, saw past the spectacle. The gown's cut allowed for surprising freedom of movement. The silver threads in it were thick, possibly wire—a subtle armour. The rings on her fingers were large, their settings deep enough to hold powders or needles. Selene was a weapon wrapped in silk.
King Alistair, playing his role, welcomed her in the great hall. The hearth was lit, but the room still swallowed warmth. Selene's smile was a brilliant, practiced thing that didn't reach her green eyes.
"King Alistair! Princess Noella! What a pleasure to finally see the legendary Eden in person. The stories of your resilience are the talk of every port from here to the Shattered Isles." Her voice was a melody, smooth and inviting.
"Princess Selene," Noella replied, her own tone a flat line by comparison. "Your journey must have been arduous. We are… unaccustomed to such vibrant visitors."
"Oh, one makes one's own comfort," Selene laughed, a sound like chimes. Her gaze swept the hall, noting the worn tapestries, the repaired furniture, and lingering, inevitably, on Volsei who stood apart, leaning against a pillar. Her smile didn't falter, but her eyes sharpened for a fraction of a second. Assessment. "And this must be the renowned Guardian. The Whispering Blade. Your reputation is… formidable, sir."
Volsei said nothing. He gave a slow blink, the human equivalent of a cat ignoring a bird.
The silence stretched, becoming awkward. Selene broke it with another laugh, turning back to Noella. "I come bearing gifts, of course! Tokens of Silverveil's esteem." She clapped her hands. Servants brought in chests. One held bolts of fine, water-resistant wool. Another, jars of preserved citrus and exotic spices. A third contained a set of precision navigation instruments—astrolabes, calipers, a telescopic sight of remarkable clarity.
Noella inspected the instruments. They were not just gifts; they were a message. We know what you value. We have what you need.
"You are too generous," Alistair said, sounding overwhelmed.
"Nonsense! Between neighbours, it is only right." Selene's expression grew confiding. "May we speak privately, Princess Noella? There are matters of… mutual interest that are best discussed away from echoing halls."
\\-\\-
They met in Noella's solar, a small room with a good lock and a single, high window. Selene dismissed her maid. Noella did not dismiss Volsei; he remained, a silent statue by the door. Selene accepted this without comment, pouring herself a cup of wine from the offered carafe.
"Let us be direct," Selene said, the melodic charm replaced by a crisp, businesslike tone. The transformation was startling. "Tombsrose is a tumour. It grows, it chokes, it will consume us all. You have cut it, remarkably. But a tumour recurs unless excised."
"Your diagnosis is noted," Noella said. "Your proposed treatment?"
"Silverveil has wealth. Ships. Intelligence networks that span coasts you've never seen. What we lack is a land-based deterrent. A… pivot point." She leaned forward. "Eden has become that pivot. You have a weapon," she nodded toward Volsei, "and a mind." Her green eyes locked on Noella's mismatched ones. "We have the gold to feed your people through three winters. The ship-lanes to import the materials for your 'Academy.' The spies to tell you where Tombsrose's next fleet is being built, or where their grain convoys are weakest."
"And in return?"
"Your knowledge." Selene's smile returned, thin and sharp. "Not your guardian's secrets. Yours. The formulas for your black powder variants. Your designs for those clever traps. Your analytical methods for… assessing weaknesses. We will become partners. You make Eden the unbreakable anvil. Silverveil becomes the hammer, striking Tombsrose's interests wherever they touch the sea. Together, we bleed them dry. Economically, first. Then militarily."
It was a grand, audacious vision. A true alliance of complementary strengths. It was also a trap. Silverveil wanted to industrialize Noella's genius, turning her inventions into commodities they could control and sell. Eden would become a fortress-factory, dependent on Silverveil's supply lines.
"A partnership implies equity," Noella said. "Your inputs are tangible: gold, goods, information. My outputs are intellectual property—the seed corn of Eden's future sovereignty. Your proposal would make me a tenant farmer on my own land, growing crops for your export."
Selene's eyes glittered. "A sharecropper, perhaps. But a rich and powerful one. Survival first, sovereignty later. Can you truly afford the luxury of intellectual pride when your people are one bad harvest from eating their shoes?"
The barb was calculated, cruel, and true. Noella felt the pressure of it. The equation was brutal: short-term survival for long-term dependency.
"I will need a detailed prospectus," Noella said, giving nothing away. "Exact figures for grain shipments. Samples of the materials you propose to supply. A full disclosure of your intelligence on Tombsrose's naval assets. Then I will model the partnership's viability."
Selene looked surprised, then impressed. She had expected emotional negotiation, not a request for a data packet. "Of course. I anticipated as much. The documents are in my carriage. I will have them delivered." She stood, smoothing her gown. "There is one other thing. A personal gift. Not for the crown. For you."
From a fold in her sleeve, she produced a small, darkwood box. She placed it on the table and opened it. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a single lens in a delicate silver frame, attached to a thin headband. "A monocular lens. My own opticians made it. It magnifies without distorting the periphery. For your… close work."
It was a beautiful, thoughtful, and profoundly intimate piece of espionage. A tool meant for her lab, implying Selene knew exactly where and how she spent her time. A bribe and a warning in one.
Noella picked it up. The craftsmanship was exquisite. "Thank you."
"We understand each other, I think," Selene said, her melodic tone returning as she moved to the door. She paused, glancing at Volsei. "Do you ever speak, Guardian? Or only cut?"
Volsei's eyes met hers. "I speak when words are the sharpest tool available," he said, his voice a dry rasp. "This wasn't one of those times."
Selene's perfect smile finally slipped, just for an instant, revealing the cold steel beneath. Then she laughed, a genuine-sounding chuckle this time. "I shall remember that."
She left, the scent of salt and ambergris lingering in her wake.
Noella placed the monocular back in its box. "She's more dangerous than Doric. He wants a weapon. She wants to own the armoury."
Volsei shifted from the door. "She's scared, too. But of different things. Not of being killed. Of being irrelevant. Of missing the chance to profit."
"Then we will make ourselves relevant," Noella said, looking at the documents a servant now brought in—thick scrolls covered in trade figures and ship manifests. "And we will make sure the profit has a cost she hasn't yet calculated."
Outside, the blue silk pavilions of Silverveil fluttered, a splash of alien colour against the grey Eden stone. The game had just acquired a new player, one who dealt not in iron, but in gilt-edged poison.
And Noella had just begun to calculate the antidote.