Blood-Glass Scrying

The Voss estate sat on the eastern edge of the province of Arnhold, which meant it sat on the empire's arse. Minor nobility, minor coin, minor influence. Perfect cover.

Elara — Lady Elara now, Lady Mira in her previous life — spent her first week relearning the body. The girl she had woken in was a passable fencer, an indifferent horsewoman, and completely untrained in the blood arts that the Thornwood line had suppressed for three generations.

Elara remembered the blood arts.

Her mother had died for knowing them.

She trained at midnight in the Voss cellar, drawing from the small cuts she made in her palms. Blood magic was not elegant: it stank of copper, it left bruises, it attracted flies. But a blood-glass scrying lens, correctly made, could see through any wall in any palace.

On the seventh night she successfully scried the imperial capital from four hundred miles away.

She found, as expected, the man who had arranged her death — standing in the throne room, advising the emperor she was supposed to marry.

He was smiling.

Elara let the lens dissolve and began making lists.