“Ha!” Carver said, his lips thick with mead and meat. “Many a starry-eyed dreamer has sought out to reclaim the Ntishan Throne, and they’ve all failed. The Empire was a long time ago, and we’re all too different and too mistrustful after a thousand years of war.”

“So people say,” Melly said evenly.

“Tell me then, how are you different from all the others? How do you propose that someone without title, property, or wealth–and a woman no less–will succeed where men with ample measures of all three have failed?”

“I won’t,” Melly replied. “They’ll lift me up on their shoulders and beg me to take the throne.”

The old general gave a bawdy laugh. “Just like St. Honorius, huh? And why, pray tell, would they do that?”

“To protect themselves from a far greater threat of course.”

“And what might that be?”

“Why, you of course.”