If I could have chased him off, I would have done so without a moment's hesitation. But the position of Empress came with certain non-negotiable requirements of conduct, and behaving with composure toward visiting merchants — however unpleasant their company — was firmly among them.
'Oh, to be ungoverned,' I thought. 'What an extraordinary luxury that must be.'
Reichert, for his part, was not at ease despite my invitation to be so. He stood with the particular stiffness of a man marshalling himself toward something difficult, and after a brief pause in which he appeared to be organising his words with some care, he finally spoke.
"Your Majesty, I committed a serious impropriety against you yesterday. I offer my sincerest apology — disrespect was never my intention."
"Mister Reichert." I produced the most pleasant smile I had available. "I had all but forgotten our little interaction."
I let a beat pass.
"Although — it does leave me with one small question. You are asking my forgiveness because I am the Empress of Selon. If I had been, as you initially assumed when we met — simply a woman in a warehouse, nobody of any particular consequence — would you have apologised then?"
The smile remained exactly where I had placed it.
The effect was immediate. He flinched — not dramatically, not enough for anyone at a distance to catch, but I was close enough to see it. A deep furrow appeared between his brows. He looked away briefly, appeared to reach some internal decision, and then brought his gaze directly back to mine.
"No, your Majesty," he said. His voice was steady, even a fraction louder than before, as if the honesty had come with its own conviction. "I would not have."
I stared at him.
Of all the responses I had anticipated — deflection, carefully worded contrition, the standard diplomatic manoeuvring of a man trying to protect a commercial relationship — this had not been among them. Blunt, unvarnished, and entirely accurate. He had looked directly at me and told the truth, knowing full well it wasn't the answer designed to make his situation easier.
"Please elaborate, Mister Reichert," I said.
He held my gaze with those unnerving blue eyes, which up close had the particular quality of ice over deep water — sharp, and lit from somewhere behind them.
"It is my personal experience and personal prejudice," he said, "and I'm not proud of either. I know it isn't right to let it direct my conduct. But the truth is, I struggle to form a charitable view of northerners." He looked away at last, at something in the middle distance. "The people who depend on me — there are many of them, and their livelihoods depend on how well I conduct business within the Selon empire. If your Majesty decided there was no place for me here, I would be removed, and the people I am responsible for would suffer for it." A slight unsteadiness entered his voice at the end, brief but audible. "I ask for your clemency, your Majesty."
Well.
Of all the things I had expected from the silver-haired merchant who had implied I might be a thieving northerner with a heart made of stone, the most brutally honest apology I had received in recent memory was not it. Merchant and honesty were not words that generally belonged in the same sentence. They coexisted about as comfortably as oil and water, and yet here he was, stating plainly that he would not have apologised had I been nobody, and then explaining exactly why without dressing it in anything more flattering than the truth.
I exhaled slowly.
"Mister Reichert, I assure you it was never my intention to disrupt your enterprise or the wellbeing of the people who depend on you. You did irritate me yesterday — I won't pretend otherwise — but it passed quickly, and I have considerably larger concerns occupying my attention." I kept my tone even and my expression composed. "There is nothing to forgive. Please continue your work here in good faith, and I genuinely hope you earn enough to keep everyone fed."
I offered a small nod that indicated the conversation had reached its conclusion, and began to turn.
"A moment, your Majesty."
I stopped.
'Gods above Mountain Serana', I thought, with considerable feeling.
The aide — who had been present throughout, close enough to be useful but quiet enough to have remained essentially invisible while his employer occupied all the available attention — stepped forward and placed a wooden case in Reichert's hands. It was a beautiful object in its own right: the wood polished to a warm lustre, the edges carved with twining floral vines worked in fine detail. The craftsmanship alone was enough to raise immediate questions about what it was protecting on the inside.
From somewhere about his person, Reichert produced a key. Small, unusual — carved, or perhaps grown, from what appeared to be white jade, smooth and slightly luminous. Even at this distance, I could detect magic on it. Not faintly — strongly, layered, several distinct signatures woven together. At least three varieties of enchantment, possibly four, compressed into an object small enough to close in one fist.
He inserted the key into an almost imperceptibly small recess on one side of the case and turned it.
The lid opened, and he turned the case toward me.
I went still.
A necklace. Pink diamond at the centre — not the pale, washed-out pink of inferior stones, but a deep, rich iridescent rose that shifted colour in the light with the particular quality of something that has been formed under extraordinary pressure over a very long time. The setting was delicate in the way of things that are not actually delicate at all, just refined to the point where their strength is no longer visible. The diamond itself had been cut and faceted into the form of a rose, each petal catching the light at a slightly different angle, the whole thing assembled with a level of craft that made looking at it feel like an intrusion on something private.
"Oh, gods," Rewathi said softly beside me.
'Oh, to the gods indeed.'
"It is a beautiful piece," I said, and looked up from the necklace to the man holding it. As my eyes met his, something moved across his expression — a brief, unreadable shift behind those electric blue eyes, there and gone before I could name it.
Perhaps I had imagined it.
"I hope you find a good buyer for it," I added, and moved to continue walking.
"It is not for sale, your Majesty." He said it with the easy calm of someone stating a simple fact. "It is a gift. From the Silver Eagle guild, to the imperial throne of Selon."
Rewathi made a small, sharp sound beside me.
I turned back slowly.
"A gift." I looked at the case, then at him. "You told me you have mouths to feed. A piece like this would fetch a considerable sum. Why give it away?"
"Because it has always been designated as a gift — since before we left the port of Berger," he said. "It was never intended for sale. It is invaluable in the truest sense of the word, which is precisely why we chose to present it to the imperial throne. For good faith, and for future endeavours between our guild and Selon."
He closed the lid with a soft click and withdrew the jade key, holding both toward me.
"The key carries four active enchantments, your Majesty, which I should explain." He turned the key between his fingers as he spoke. "The first is 'Never Lost' — the key cannot be misplaced by its owner; it will always return to them. The second is 'Where Is It'— should anyone other than the owner open the case using the key, the necklace inside vanishes immediately, removing itself from sight and reach. The third is 'Always Here', placed on both the key and the case — if either object is taken by someone other than the owner, regardless of the distance involved, the owner need only think of it and it will reappear beside them. The fourth is 'Ownership' — the owner can formally transfer the necklace to another person by speaking the designated phrase while pressing the key to the hole."
He finished and looked at me, the case and key held out in offering, his expression entirely composed.
I regarded him for a moment.
The necklace was extraordinary. The enchantments were serious work — four layered protections of that quality didn't come cheaply or easily. And the man holding it out to me was the same man who, less than twenty-four hours ago, had suggested I might be a stone-hearted northern thief.
The unease he produced in me — that particular sensation, like something small moving under the surface — had not diminished in the slightest.