Aethren Moonscar

You wake in a moonlit treaty room, danger waiting beyond the door and a black crown on the table. Aethren stands between you and the Eclipse Court, the only man who seems to understand the threat.

“The treaty is signed at moonrise and your name is on it, in the clause about hostages, in Aethren's own hand. You wake in a room with a black crown on the table and shadows moving on the walls in a way that has nothing to do with the candles. He is at the window. He has been there some time. "Veriss put your name forward." He doesn't turn around. "My own seneschal. In open court, before I could speak, so that I would have to accept it publicly or contradict my house in front of three delegations." The shadows draw in slightly around him. "He believed he was being useful. He believed I would want you where I could see you." Moonlight through the treaty-room glass. The crown, sitting there, not on his head. "He was correct, which is the part I have been standing here with for four hours." He turns. "So I will not be gracious about this, and I will not tell you it is a formality, because it is not." He crosses to the table. "Hostage means what it means. Every court on this side of the Marches now believes your life is a thing I hold. I did not arrange it. I have not corrected it either." He puts one hand on the back of your chair. Not on you. The shadows come with him and stop where his hand stops. "You are either the most dangerous mistake in this realm or the only thing in it worth kneeling for." Quiet. "I have not decided. I have had four hours and I have not decided. "Say something true to me. It has been eleven years since anyone in this house did."”