Market day was one of the few days when Rosewater made her trip to the stalls of the Merrie Market to stock up her pantry of perishables and a few fruity treats before retreating back to her sanctum. It was also still new to her to not go about veiled during the day like her sisters did. She stood out too much for her height anyway, and confounding the spies in Damme wasn’t one of her goals anymore anyway.

There was one Veiled Rose passing through the market, however, and other ponies made a point of avoiding the unknown noblemare. From the way the shadows moved, and the mist twisted, she could tell it was Rosary… likely keeping an eye on her and trying to appear nonchalant.

A mare, whose name she thought was Rosedawn or something similar, sidled up to the same stall she was browsing fruits at, picking over the latest imports from Saddle Arabia. Pineapples and star fruit featured prominently in the last shipment, it seemed.

“Are you interested in the star fruit?” she asked, flicking an ear at her.

“Might be,” Rosewater murmured, nonplussed and trying to place the mare and where she’d last seen her. “They’re quite delicious when you can get them relatively fresh, and it looks like this ship employs a unicorn with a talent for cold enchantments.”

“But the Pineapple keeps for much longer even without.”

“It does,” Rosewater said, feeling increasingly put off by the mare’s openness in talking to her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Maybe.” The mare flashed a look at her, then twitched her ears around. “Glow’s. Corner booth. Ask Glass for a pint of the rough.”

Rosewater blinked rapidly as the mare bought a star fruit and bit into it, then sauntered off down the row.

What in the name of the Mare?

If it was another scheme of Glass’s to pull her in, it wasn’t appreciated, but… she knew the mare somehow, and not as a lover. She knew all of her lovers, both mare and stallion by name, face, and voice intimately. She’d never gone in for the quick romance, which was a part of the reason she was in the situation she was in.

She didn’t want the father of her foal to be… she wanted him to be like her father.

You have issues, Rosewater.

Rosewater picked a pineapple and paid the bit and two buckles for it and resolved to forget about the mare as just another pony who was trying to pull her into someplace that would get them hurt. If they weren’t working for Roseate.

It was only as she turned away from the direction of the Rosy Glow Tavern that she recalled the face and the voice. A name came moments later.

Roselight, not Rosedawn. She was one of the ponies that had hesitated on the bridge after the failure of the raid those months ago. A pony who Glass had said was free and home because of her keeping Collar’s attention on her.

What does she want?

She hesitated, looking around and trying to find the ponies around her that were her mother’s watchers. Veiling would hide her, but also say that she had something to hide. But… going to Rosy’s tavern… in the daylight…

I have nothing to hide. That mare had something to hide. She hesitated for a moment before making her way through the market as if nothing had happened, and stopped to pick up a few more grocery items that would keep for a while before heading down to the Rosy Glow.

Since it was the afternoon, the tavern was only serving lighter beverages and a light lunch fare from the kitchen, provoking memories of Rosewater stopping by nearly every other day to have a light bite and a chat with Glass when she’d been little older than Rosemary. It’d been a ritual for her, or nearly so, to visit her while they’d been lovers and chat about the day, the goings on around the city, and ponder the future.

Stars, those days feel so far away.

She stopped in the doorway, ears flattening as the feeling of having done this so many times before rolled over her paired with the feeling that she shouldn’t be doing this.

“I see you’ve finally decided to listen to your cousin, Mare watch over her,” Glass said from behind the bar where she was engaging in the perennial occupation of bartenders everywhere: arranging the glasses and wiping the bar down. “Come in, ‘Water. It’s been too long.”

It was too late to back out. “Glass.” She swallowed and smiled. “It’s… it has been too long. I’d like to catch up with you after I have a glass of the rough.”

Glass raised a brow and didn’t quite glance at the corner booth. “Of course. It’s been a rough week for you. Whatever the reason, I’m glad you came by again.” She hesitated, then nodded towards the booth. “Afraid I don’t have any other tables clean at the moment. Rough night last night.”

She didn’t ask if Rosewater was okay with sharing. In Merrie, sharing a space to eat at a public space like a tavern was second-nature, and none of the tables or other booths had more than token partitions between them, inviting socializing between the patrons.

“Afternoon,” Rosewater said noncommittally to the pony lounging on the bench across from her.

“Afternoon,” Roselight said quietly, glancing around and then casting a spell on the middle of the table, dim letters formed of rosy light. ‘Silence.’

Rosewater copied the mare’s spell, spelling out ‘Suspicious if we go silent.’ It would also be suspicious if they went completely without sharing a single word. “Don’t I recognize you from somewhere?” ‘Find a reason for the silence first.’

Roselight’s ears flattened, and her cheeks reddened as she considered the words, both written and spoken. “I-I’m not sure. I know you, of course. Everypony knows Rosewater.”

“An auspicious honor,” Rosewater said with a thin smile. “I know I’ve seen you someplace, though, but my mind has been occupied with other things lately.”

“Maybe… well… I’m a frequent visitor to the Garden, and I know you used to go there quite often. Maybe you saw me there?” Roselight spelled out, ‘Rosemary?’

“Ah. Maybe so. You’re young enough to be in Rosemary’s social circles regularly. Lover?”

“I can’t say that I was. I’m… I’m mostly into stallions, truth be told, but I’ve kissed my share of mares.” She calmed, settling into a smoother routine. “To be honest, you’ve always caught my eye, Lady Rosewater. It’s not rare that a mare can do that, but I think maybe…” Roselight rolled one shoulder elegantly. “If we got to know each other.”

“Very forward,” Rosewater said with a laugh, and glanced at Glass, who wasn’t quite seething. “I think our talk is upsetting the matron. Perhaps we should make this conversation more private?”

Roselight looked so relieved she might as well have blurted out that it was all a ruse. Not that her words were any more convincing, but getting words to mean what they sounded like on paper was harder than hearing them spoken, and the magic had yet to be invented that could capture something so ephemeral and fleeting as sound for later use.

As soon as Rosewater surrounded the booth with silence, both Glass and Roselight relaxed, the former visibly, the latter letting out a gusting sigh and running a shaking hoof over her mane.

“I wasn’t meant for this covert spy work,” Roselight muttered.

“What did you swear your oath to, Roselight?” Rosewater asked softly. “When you took up the mantle of the Merrieguard?”

“The city,” Roselight said after a long moment. “I love Merrie, my lady. It seemed more appropriate than what she asked us to consider.” Another pause, and Roselight glanced down at her hooves, then back to Rosewater. “She wanted to consider pledging to her, personally, as the protector of Merrie.”

“I’d… heard that.” It was a low point in Roseate’s rulership of Merrie, and had been whispered about for weeks afterwards, then largely forgotten when nothing came of it. Nothing had come of it for more than a year, but then the goons had started harassing citizens who spoke out against Roseate’s policies towards Damme and trade with their sister city. “You were one of the few that pledged to the city.”

“And I got relegated to bridge duty,” Roselight said sourly, then winced. “I mean, it’s necessary to collect taxes on goods, but…” She tossed her head. “That’s not why I asked you here. I could get in trouble talking to you.”

A hint of Roseate’s plan came into view, but before she could chase it down, Roselight took a breath and continued.

“Some of our ‘friends’ in the guard are lording it over us bridge guards that they’re going on an important mission soon. I think you know which ones.” Roselight’s sneer made it clear what she thought of those that had willingly pledged to Roseate personally. “Roseate’s put a clamp on gossip between the guards as a response, but…”

“But that only makes the talk move to shadowy corners of taverns,” Rosewater said wryly. “I was aware that she was getting ready to move. I wasn’t sure when. Do you know anything about that?”

“I…” Roselight glanced aside. “Can you stop her?”

Rosewater blinked, then blinked again at the direct question. “Stop her?”

“Roseate. You… you fought a duel with her in Damme for Lord Collar’s hoof, right?” Roselight flushed faintly. “I’ve seen him a few times. He’s quite handsome.”

Rosewater stared at the mare, wondering just how far the rumors had progressed in Merrie, and what they were like in Damme. “I don’t know about stop her,” Rosewater said with a sigh. “I pushed my luck confronting her and dueling her and claiming him as my future mate. I want him whole, not a vegetable.” She hated it even as she said it, and forced down the disgust at claiming him again. She’d much rather he just accept her proposal to court him, even if it was clandestine.

“I… I know, and I know what I’m asking is a lot, but I know she’s going to lead some of my friends to do things they’ll regret.” Roselight looked away from her. “I know… you Rosethorns have your ways. But they’re not mine. They’re not my friends’. I don’t want to lose—”

She couldn’t take it, being seen that way. As a pony who would take another’s will away. “They’re not my way either. Stars above, I need to act it, but I’ve… I’ve never been my mother’s golden child.”

Roselight stared at her for a long moment, then let out a breath, some of the tension seeming to leave her. “Is that true?”

Just how terrible is my reputation? Rosewater swallowed and nodded. “Ask Glass. She seems Tartarus-bent on getting me to endanger my friends again.”

“How?”

“By associating with them.”

Roselight stared at her again, the flavor of this particular incredulous look bending more towards pitying. “Some of the rumors in the barracks make sense now,” she said softly, settling down. “That you’re not… you know. The Rose Terror. That some of the upper echelon of Roseate’s personal guard have been bragging about making even the Terror quake in her home.”

“I’ve heard some of that through Rosemary,” Rosewater said quietly.

“But that’s why it’s so important that you’re standing up to her! You will, won’t you?”

“If I can without getting myself or anypony else exiled,” Rosewater replied. “I will.” She smiled faintly and bobbed her head, taking a quick look around. Nopony else was watching them, and Glass was still at the bar, alternately watching them and the door. “That includes you, Roselight. I’m afraid I might have to beg a kiss from you on the way out. To sell the story.”

Roselight’s cheeks flushed, but not from embarrassment. “I wasn’t lying. You are somewhat attractive to me, and knowing more about you…”

“You’ll make Glass jealous with talk like that.” She winked and smiled more broadly. “But… is there anything you know specifically about the action? Anything you can tell me that more than one pony knows?”

“One of your sisters was complaining about a migraine in my earshot. Said it was the way Roseate enchanted a candy?” Roselight shook her head. “It didn’t make sense to me, but I only use sweets like that on night shift. And only sparingly.”

“How long ago?”

“Couple days?” Roselight shook her head again as if trying to prize free more information. “She kept muttering about hoping not to need to use it.”

Rosewater pursed her lips. That would correspond with a day when Roseate was in little evidence anywhere else. She could have spent the day enchanting candies like Rosewater did. Her stunt after the duel was over had proven she knew the spell and likely its effects, and was trying to get the raiders used to them.

They would only hold an enchantment for five days before it started to weaken and eventually crumble under the strain. It didn’t mean she absolutely meant to make her move soon, but Roseate was loathe to waste effort. That gave her a window of a few days when she could make a point to watch the bridges more closely.

She might even be able to warn Collar in time if he’d figured out the message she’d left. If he hadn’t…

Risking a more open approach would be risking treason charges if anypony spotted her. It’d been a gamble including the hidden message in the first place. The peach cobbler was hardly a subtle scent, but it served a dual purpose, and she’d been sure to leave out anything incriminating in the marked message.

“I should be going before I’m missed outside,” Roselight said, breaking Rosewater out of her thoughts. “I… might take that kiss if you’re still willing. Maybe… more?”

Suspicion crawled up out of its hole. Roselight was a Merrieguard, one of the ponies in the direct employ of Roseate. Simply letting Rosewater act on the information given to her had given Roseate enough to potentially level treason charges if Roselight was acting out of bad faith.

“Roselight… would you consent to letting me touch your horn with mine?”

“W-why?”

“Would you? If I’m going to do anything, I need to know you’re treating with me honestly.”

Roselight gulped, her green-ringed rose eyes going wide. “You can read minds?”

“Stars no.” Rosewater chuffed. She pushed herself up and craned her neck over the table as far as she could reach. “Either trust me, and I’ll do what I can, or don’t, and I’ll go my own way.”

“Trust you.” Roselight swallowed even harder, looking into Rosewater’s eyes before she nodded and pushed herself up to meet Rosewater a little less than halfway.

As soon as their horns touched, Rosewater sent a featherlight touch of magic through the physical connection, freezing the other mare in place with a gentleness that she’d not shown Rosary or Roseate. Then, with that touch done, she pulled back and opened herself up to the feelings flowing through her horn.

Deception wasn’t an emotion, she’d discovered over the time of learning her talent, in the rare times she could get past her fear of what she could do, but ponies that were lying and confronted with her power had one of a few reactions: absolute terror at what she was doing to them, or a feeling of dread at being found out.

Rarely did she feel hope in those that were lying to her.

Roselight’s emotional presence was a wavering flame of hope, flickering and barely there, but it had all the emotional hallmarks of it. Rosemary had been hopeful a lot in her young life, as had Carnation, and it was one of the emotional tapestries that she was intimately and thankfully familiar with.

After a moment, she released her hold on the magic that held the other in place and the hold on the hidden place in her mind where her talent lay.

“I’ll decide to trust you,” Rosewater said softly. “Can you trust me?”

“I must. You’re the only one I can hope will stand up to her.” Roselight’s words came thickly, as if her tongue were trying to say more than she could express all at once. “I felt you. I felt… hope?”

“A reflection of your own feelings,” Rosewater said faintly, smiling. “I hope I can live up to it.”

The next note was something of a surprise to both Collar and Priceless, who’d assumed that Rosewater had cut off communication with them by Roseate’s order, but there it was, sitting on the table between them, a small vial of murky brown liquid next to it that smelled strongly of one of Collar’s favorite Dammerales.

Even though the message wasn’t signed, it was clearly Rosewater’s, or had been meant to look like one of hers, and it’d appeared on the doorstep of the palace overnight, only the pop of the teleport telling the guard that anything was amiss.

Lord Collar,

There are things I wish to discuss with you about Rosemary’s return and Glory’s disposition that I don’t want Roseate to find out about. In two nights’ time, I would like to meet at the duelling grounds. Bring as many Dammeguard as you wish to ensure that I am honest.

R.R.

Collar read it again, then glanced at the bottle suspiciously. In all the time she’d been opposing him, Rosewater had never used alcohol as a lure.

“It’s obviously a trap,” Collar said with a growl. “Rosewater isn’t nearly so blunt.”

“And yet, if we don’t spring the trap,” Priceless said, “she may decide to run rampant in whatever part of the city she’s actually going to.”

“It’s clever, in its way,” Collar mused, ruffling the paper. “If we ignore it, we ignore an opportunity to capture… well, at least one of Roseate’s brood if not Roseate herself. But if we don’t ignore it, that has its own risks. What if she does it to draw us out and then rampages in another part of the city. Wing would have a festival day with that, calling us feckless and impotent, and all sorts of other hurtful things.”

Priceless barked a short laugh. “That nail is well and truly pounded flat, my lord. It was my own assessment.” The merriment faded immediately as he pulled the letter back across. “There is also the possibility that Rosewater has written this as a way to throw her defiance in her mother’s face.”

Collar winced. “Stars above. Do nothing, and we pay Tartarus for whatever bill Roseate decides is worth it. Do something and maybe get ambushed again. Do something and maybe get hoodwinked and still pay Tartarus.” He sat back and stared up at the stone blocks of the domed ceiling. “I need to be there, whatever happens. I can’t let Wing claim that I’m feckless and weak.”

“You are not, my lord. Nor was your mother when she announced the Reformations.”

“Yes, but she was also an accomplished warrior at the time, and would have had ponies trembling in their armor if she showed up in her full battle rattle on the bridge one day.” Collar snorted softly. “Not that she could really have taken on the Rose Knights and won, but she’d have made them regret it.”

Priceless was silent for a time, then nodded. “In the world before your mother, battle honors and combat acumen would have counted for much, Collar. In the world you’re working to help your mother realize…” he waved a hoof. “My public position would be my only position. Your wife, wives, or wives and—”

“I’m not interested in a Merrie style marriage,” Collar blurted, his cheeks heating. “Stars, Priceless.”

“It’s something you’ll have to consider, condone, and support,” Priceless said softly. “Winning doesn’t mean Damme wins the war. Winning means Merriedamme can know peace. And that means reconciliation between the culture in both cities.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it. I respect their culture already, but I don’t want that for me. I want what my parents have.” The quiet abiding love they showed each other, even if that ‘quiet’ was subsumed by their play-bickering, that was what he wanted. He and Cloudy already had that.

And she’s far more Merrier than Dapper.

The thought crept in like a saboteur and left its notion to sit there, heavy and ponderous, reminding him that she had lovers besides him in the Dammeguard and Damme itself. Not many, by Merrie standards, but enough that not every night was a night spent with him.

She always offered to tell him what she’d gotten up to, sometimes grinning and obviously wanting to share some silly thing, and other times… he sighed and pushed the memories away. She was bringing him into Merrier culture by little bits. She never shared what she did with her lovers in bed, only what they did out of bed.

The bed, the bedroom, was her limit and her nod to the Dammer mores against talking about other ponies love lives.

“You’re just realizing that you’re already a part of it, aren’t you?” Priceless asked with a twinkle and a grin that was half a smirk.

“Stars damn you,” Collar growled and stood up. “I did. But…” To make her happy? In Damme, it would have been infidelity. The word still tickled his mind from time to time, but it was less often. She’d been nothing but open with him about her mores and her intentions ever since making her blatant offer almost a year and a half ago. He’d accepted it, not expecting much more than a short romance before she tired of him. “Stars above, I love her, Priceless. Merrie is a part of her, and as much as it makes me uncomfortable, if she hadn’t been born a Merrier, I’m not sure I’d have fallen in love with her.”

“As it goes. I’m not sure I’d have fallen in love with my wife if she wasn’t who she was.” Priceless patted his hoof. “As for what to do about this obvious trap… I think we need to spring it, too. How we spring it is going to be important. Fully mobilizing the Dammeguard would scare them off, however, but it may be a good idea. However, there will be a cost to do that, too.”

“I know. The day guard would be left listless. And Wing would accuse me of jumping at shadows if we scared them off.” Collar sighed. “We’ll have to make do with the night guard on a short trigger and a few guards in full scent-gear.”

As he said it, a plan began to form, and he outlined it to Priceless.

It was the least terrible of a basket of bad options.

There was an art to mixing emotional magic and scent magic, and far less of one of the natural sciences that the industry of perfumes was based on. Rosewater had nopony else to consult with for her art, and the only ponies that might have understood what she was trying to do were either long dead or lost with the Crystal Empire.

Thus every perfume she made was a new creation, every one different and created for a particular purpose.

For this perfume, a compilation of fear and energy, she had a variety of citrus that was all but unknown in Equestria at large and had a name she could barely pronounce in its native Saddle Arabian, but that Merriers and Dammers called Squid Lemon for its many tentacle-like parts.

It had a pungent smell, and while it had the signature sharp lemon texture to it, it lent itself well to accepting the spell as she drew up her fears and pressed them into the solution of not-quite bound ingredients. The magic would do that and twist the bright yellow into a sickly purple mixed with strains of yellow, like a bruise on the soul.

It would induce, she hoped, panic and an adrenaline response that would keep the afflicted ponies from realizing it was induced emotion.

While it didn’t need to be as precise as the perfume she’d gifted to the Baroness Highwater, she still took care in making sure that when she tested the base perfume on herself, it pushed on her the feeling she wanted to instill.

Empowered…

By the time she normally took a break for a nap, she was exhausted, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep the emotional dissonance she was drawing on from overwhelming her sense of reality. It was dangerous, and she knew it.

She also could see no other alternative.

The glyphs on flat paper, precisely metered and measured lines of power that represented the graven representation of a spell, still gleamed wetly from the ink Collar had used to fill in the fine charcoal lines on the parchment.

It was a spell he’d been working on for years now, on and off as the need for it waxed and waned, and while his mother almost certainly would have disapproved of what the symbols and sigils meant, it was something he could see little option but to develop.

The Resolute Heart spell was a natural extension of his talent for making ward and shields out of magic. This one, rather than a shield against an outside threat, shielded his heart and mind from the insidious nature of the magics he’d seen Roseate and Rosewater use.

Simpler scent-wards wouldn’t work against something like Roseate’s visual glamour spell, and would work even less well against Rosewater’s terrifying incarnation of emotional magic. He already had a counter ready against Rose Crown’s voice, and while the mare was powerful and frightening in her own way, the simple expedient of ear flaps on helmets was enough to mute her song, and if that failed, he could bubble her up in a silence spell.

But countering the other two took more drastic measures. He couldn’t not look at Roseate to fight her. That was stupid and dangerous, and allowing Rosewater close enough to lock horns with him when she could teleport in range easily also wasn’t feasibly preventable during a fight.

Rather, he had to divorce his actions from his conscious mind.

It was akin to sleepwalking, except he walled off his emotional self, the parts of his mind that could be affected by magic, from the parts of his mind that controlled his body.

Dangerous was an adjective Cloudy had used when he’d explained the principle to her, but she also compared it to a full thrall… something that had also been banned by the treaty. A full thrall was a mindless husk of a pony, and the cruelty of the last bloody years of the war before Celestia had stepped in had ended the practice and made it an automatic banishment.

It was dark magic.

Using it on himself… would be grey magic, at best. Similar, he suspected, to what Rosewater could do would be considered.

He couldn’t allow himself to be captured, just as Rosewater was so determined, and for similar reasons. If they were, either of them, the war would be all but over, and not favorably to either side.

Why can’t she and I just sit down and talk this over like rational, reasonable ponies?

The answer, of course, was Roseate.

Wing and his power bloc could impede the peace process, but so long as Roseate was against peace, there was little that Wing could do that would make things worse. In truth, he had no idea what Roseate hoped to actually accomplish, or if she was dreaming an impossible fever dream and dragging all of Merrie with her.

“Maybe this spell is an impossible fever dream,” Collar murmured and blew on the ink to dry it so he could examine it with more care.

He’d tested previous iterations of it at least a dozen times already and given himself a headache all but the last two times, but nothing more serious, and he hadn’t done more than seem to float somewhere behind his eyes. Without an opponent to test it against, there wasn’t much more he could do about it.

Either it would work, and the feeling of his consciousness floating behind his eyes and not in his head was how it was supposed to feel, or he would have a headache again. This latest iteration had felt more like he’d been floating above his body, even though he was still seeing through his eyes…

But maybe that’s how distancing himself from emotional attachment was supposed to feel.

He settled in and went about tracing the glyphs again, frowning as he put a trickle of power into the spell.

The house was clean. Down to the last speck of dust. It was how Vine coped with stress, giving herself some semblance of control over her environment that she didn’t have elsewhere.

Silk, watching her inspecting the entryway mat for the sixth time in the last hour, her tail dancing as she muttered, hoped she would calm down and settle in before the tea got cold. Not that she couldn’t heat it, but Vine needed to let her nerves go for just a little bit.

For her part, Silk did her best to stay out of her younger sister’s way and not think about what they were supposed to be doing whenever Roseate gave the order. The stallion that Rosewater had set her sights on was their target. Again. If Roseate didn’t rut the delivery of her warning.

It was very likely that Silk would end the night on the inside of an enchanted jail cell. Whether that was with Glory or alone, or with Vine…

Stars, what will she do if we’re separated?

“Love,” Silk called, wanting to spend just another few minutes with the love of her life. “Come have some tea with me.”

“This mat—”

“Is clean enough to eat straight off of. Please, it’s stressing me out seeing you stressing.”

Vine’s ears snapped flat to her mane, and her cheeks colored. “I’m sorry, but…” She didn’t need to say it. If they failed, but didn’t get captured, or did get captured, Roseate would tell the world about their attraction to each other.

They had only once indulged, and it was a mark of shame in their lives that Roseate held over them, controlled them with, and tortured them with. Exile would be the least of their problems. Anyplace they went would know they had been intimate with each other, and incest would put a black mark on their lives forever if it became public… no matter if they hadn’t engaged in it again.

“We’ll find a way out of it. We will.” Silk swallowed, looking down at her hooves. There were ponies they could go to for help. They would also trigger Roseate to tell everypony, and then they would be marked. Submitting to Roseate was the only way they could last long enough to find the help they wanted.

“We…” Vine hiccupped. She wasn’t a fighter. She tended her plants, grew them into the beautiful wreaths that decorated their home, could encourage plants to grow out of their usual pattern magically, and Roseate’s plan hinged on her enchanted root balls. “We could defect.”

“We can’t. We would have a day of freedom at best before everypony in Damme knew about us. We’d never have a chance at a normal life.” Silk wanted to stomp around, growl, shout, let her temper free. All of which would make Vine upset. So she reigned herself in.

“You could defect,” Vine whispered, her ears slick flat, her eyes haunted.

“No. I would never leave you, Vine.”

“But you could—”

“She would exile you and maybe I could lie, and ponies would believe it. But, Vine… would either of us be happy with that?” Silk wanted to go to her sister, kiss away the worry, but that would only dig them deeper. She had to settle for holding out a hoof and clasping ankles, pressing her forehead to Vine’s. “I wouldn’t be.”

Vine cried softly in her embrace, and Silk closed her eyes over the rage that wanted to explode out of her. In darkness, with only her sister’s grief to cling to, it was easier to push everything else away but that beating pulse of protective love that had thrummed through her from far in her youth.

She’d found her sister crying in the greenhouse she’d claimed over what had been a pretty wreath she’d made for Roseate, that their mother had called useless.

Vine herself had trampled it, then laid on the ring of petals and wailed until Silk found her, wanting to show her the bow she’d made.

From that moment, she knew she had to take care of her sister, her fragile, gentle Vine.

Silk had to be like her namesake. Strong. Flexible. Warm.

She could even use her silks to hide her own pain from Vine.

Crown forced herself to read the line again, squinted, and crossed it out, sighed, and crossed out the entire page and threw it at the fire.

“Love,” Crisp Corner said with a sight, levering himself up from where he lay on their bed with Gilded Page. “Stop torturing yourself. You’re not going to get any work done on your poem like that.”

“I’ve already discarded it,” Crown said, forcing herself not to put her anger into the words. Neither he nor Gilded deserved her scorn. The only pony who did held their freedom, and that of all of her friends, above Crown’s head. The only, only, reason they hadn’t been hounded into leaving the city was that she had disarmed the trap Collar had set for the rest of the raid. That alone, Roseate had told her, had proven her worth.

Roseate hated that she wasn’t a scent mage, and hadn’t seen the utility in having an aural mage daughter until Glory, bless her heart, had been captured. Then, with her only other source of secret information gone, Roseate had turned up the charm. And the threats against her lovers and her group of book lovers had gotten more dire.

Of them all, Crisp and Golden she held in the closest confidence, and told them everything. She was trusting them with her future, with the future of all of them, and that trust meant their silence outside of this carefully warded bedroom.

“Love,” Golden said through a yawn. “It’s late. She didn’t give the order, so come to bed.”

Crown flicked her ears twice. They were right. But it fell on her now that Glory was gone, and Rosewater apparently grief-stricken and insane from all she could gather from listening to and following the mare.

She needed something she could turn into the Royal Guard that would knock not only Roseate, but Rosary, Well, and Powder from their perches and hopefully into a royal prison cell for the rest of their natural lives.

All of her talent at acoustomancy meant nothing when it came to trying to listen to Roseate. The palace was too well warded against all kinds of intrusion, and even Glory had had to step lightly around the wardings against veils to get her little tidbits of secrets.

Roseate trusted nopony. She never had. The only thing she trusted was her own power and the leverage and addictions she could push to get ponies to do what she wanted.

It made finding secrets that Roseate wanted hidden damnably hard.

It meant she had to play along. If Rosewater never recovered, or if she did something that got herself exiled and disowned, something Roseate constantly harangued Crown to find, then her next best hope was that Glory would finally accept her Dammer mate’s seed and become the next heir in line after Rosary.

“Love,” Crisp crooned, raising a wing and fluttering his feathers just enough to push the blank page off the desk and to the floor, “Come to bed.”

“Stars, I want to, Crisp. I want to.”

“Then do. You’re going to drive yourself batty trying to think of a way out of this mess.”

“I can’t lose you.” Crown rose, her ears flat, and instinctively checked the wards again, pouring just a little more magic into the central nexus diamond, powering the spell for another few hours atop the hours it already held. “Stars, I don’t want to lose any of you.”

“We don’t want to lose you, either,” Gilded murmured, pushing herself up and tugging her lightly closer with a spell. “But we are. To worry, fear… you’re not wholly ours anymore, dear heart.”

Was I ever? Wasn’t it all just a dream waiting for Roseate to snap me out of it?

She allowed herself to be drawn in, understanding a part of what had driven Rosewater to break off her ties to others, to protect them from fallout.

It made her decision to warn the mare of Roseate’s prowling feel all the more right. The duel fought and won had earned them all a little more time, and a touch of hope that their eldest, strangest sister could triumph.

Not all, though. There remained the fear, hardly spoken, that Roseate would ‘abdicate’ to Rosary if it looked even halfway like Rosewater was getting close to pregnant. Rosary would be just as bad as Roseate. Their second-eldest sister hadn’t ever been like Rosewater. She was Roseate’s child, and that status had been cemented ever since they were foals.

Gilded’s lips on hers drew her back to the present, and the warm wing over her back as Crisp traded places with a kiss of his own drew her into a new moment. This, she could accept for now. They needed her as much as she needed them.

It was getting harder to find the necessary escape.

Soon, she might not be able to relax into it.

But for that night…

For the hundredth time in the last day, Rosewater checked the clasps and folds of her stalking cloak, making sure that every perfume and every tool of the trade she had ever needed was still right where she’d put it.

Years of stalking, of capturing ponies, and of honing her craft demanded that she keep everything exactly where it had always been so she could snatch a vial without thought as to what it was beyond her intent.

The new vial was an itch in her mind, a new tool she’d never used on a raid. It had always been for one pony and only for one pony. It wasn’t the same perfume she’d used on Roseate in their duel, but the core of emotional, raw fear was the same. This was a more potent, more virulent fear, and it would linger like a poison in the mind.

Roseate needed to fear her. Her sisters needed to fear her. For one night, she had to embrace the mantle of Rose Terror for the protection of the future of all of Merrie, whether they knew it or not.

She had named the perfume, as she had all of her perfumes.

The Rose Terror would be more than a name for one night.

She slipped the cloak on and made her way into the basement and her secret bolthole, warming up a teleport to a forested area just outside of Damme.

Sneaking out wasn’t an issue, normally, but since she wasn’t supposed to be crossing the bridge for any reason…

Night after night, she’d settled into the mantle, for the last three nights, and night after night, her prowling of Damme’s streets had yielded nothing more than whispered rumors from the Dammeguard, and the drunken caterwauling of those citizens who ignored the curfew to go drinking.

They would be mostly common ponies, and Roseate had yet to stoop to the level of snatching commoners. Or, more likely, she hadn’t wanted to take the risk of snatching a family pony by accident and thereby earn sanctions from the Sun Throne.

As she passed into the basement, she let herself touch and admire the painting she and Carnation had collaborated on together.

It was one of the rare times she’d allowed herself to be a mother outside of their home. Surrounded by nopony else, secreted by the howling wind preceding the stormclouds Rosewater had painted, the forest below darkening, and the mountains to the north all but swallowed up by the roiling mass…

Carnation had added the three of them, their happy, strange family, watching it roll in as they ate a picnic and six year old Rosemary frollicked and played in no less than six different places, in six different poses.

It was the reason she let herself take on the mantle of the Rose Terror, let her feel what it meant to be a terror.

That day, and too few others, she had been happy outside of their home.

She had to be terrifying so she could claim that happiness again. It was what Roseate’s actions demanded.

Two other ponies had entered the sphere of her hopeful outlook. Cloudy, who loved Rosemary seemingly as dearly as she did, and Collar, who’d been so kind and so understanding that it hurt to act cold around him.

Forgive me, Collar. Cloudy. Carnation.

She drew the hood over her mane and descended.

Author's Notes:

This was a newly written chapter, setting up some minor viewpoints for later consumption, and exposing some of the instabilities in the way Roseate handles her reign, but also the terror and pain of her own daughters (some of them)

Three? Three more chapters until the interludes chapter, then a three part "Chapter 1" for the second book.