Agatha sat in stunned silence for a very, very long time.
***
The man with a thousand plans.
That was what Penelope used to call him, laughing at him whenever he orchestrated elaborate contingencies to prepare for possible eventualities where things would go wrong. Orion felt grim as Ice streaked through the darkness above the twinkling, bustling city of Regstone, feeling more like the man with a thousand terrible plans. Penelope had always ridiculed him for his cautious attention to detail, and it had been caution, or lack thereof, that had taken her away from him. But for all the cautious planning in the world, he had not been able to construct an eventuality where the Disputed Corridor could be recovered without handing Agatha over to the Vandan crown. The only recourse that would have allowed Agatha to escape the cruel fate he had sentenced her to involved informing Finthalion about King Olbrecht's transgressions and allowing him to take the due course of action, but that also meant relinquishing any hope of recovering the Disputed Corridor and wilfully allowing another famine to strike Lohenstraad. For a very long time, Orion had wanted to make that choice. But, much as he tried, he simply had not been able to. He doubted whether he would be able to explain his rationale to Finthalion. People who had not witnessed hunger a day of their lives had a very different way of looking at the world, and Orion had learnt the hard way that even the most compassionate of them were naturally deficient when it came to comprehending choices that were not graced with the same privilege.
And thus, he had slaved away, refining the details around a political subterfuge of machiavellian proportions, one that involved handing his woman over to Fredenand Olbrecht in exchange for the Disputed Corridor, and then rescuing her in secret without drawing suspicion to himself, thereby escaping culpability and saving a Treaty that was based on a bare faced lie.
Grimly, he remembered the first time he had noticed her ears; it was shortly after she had lost consciousness on the courtyard in front of the Armoury after wearing herself out in an attempt to save his men. When he had laid her inert form on his bed and tried to move the thick black cloud of hair out of the way so that he could place a pillow underneath her head, he had noticed the unmistakable sharpening of the outer shell at an imperceptible point - a feature that most humans would mistake as a congenital deformity, but Orion had seen it for what it truly was almost immediately.
His first thought had been to send for Finthalion and reunite him with his daughter and work out a solution which would enable the Thistle Dragon to bond with her Rider. But the threat of winter loomed darkly in front of them, and he knew better than anyone that trouble was brewing in the Vandan borders again. Vampires were migrating to Vandan at an unprecedented rate and their troops posted in the Disputed corridor reported an unnatural influx of enemy soldiers. All of his entreaties to King Egbert to sit for a mature discourse with King Olbrecht had fallen to deaf ears; the man, like all kings before him, had refused to consider a proposition that would injure his overly inflated, misplaced sense of pride.
It had been the continued reports of empty granaries that had been the feather that had broken the camel's back, and Orion had sent his informers on a quest to bring him information about the handmaid who had escaped with Princess Esmeralda De Clare twenty four years ago. Georgina had been located easily enough; she had been recruited by the Sacred Hand soon after she had entered the services of Queen Consort Estrilda, and convincing her to work for him had proved to be easy. Georgina's unyielding loyalty to a Queen who had been long dead had surprised Orion greatly at the moment, but after he had gotten acquainted with Agatha, her fiercely honorable and tenderly sweet disposition, even and especially at the face of great personal adversity had all but pointed at a similarly endowed parent. It lined up with his initial impression of Estrilda from their short acquaintance so many years ago.
Georgina had explained to him that she had been assisted by two members of the Sacred Hand in her journey across the Vandan borders with the infant Princess. But then, on a stormy night, their carriage had been ambushed by a band of robbers and Georgina had careened out into the night in a bid to save Agatha. She had left Agatha on the first doorstep that she had seen and had run away in the opposite direction to chase the robbers away from her. When she returned a few days later, she was unable to locate the neighbourhood where she had parted with Agatha, and had spent the intermediate years in absolute misery, eaten alive by the guilt of a mission not completed. The old woman had burst into tears when Orion had informed her that the Princess was alive and well.
After handing Agatha over to King Olbrecht, Orion had spent a month with very little occupation to distract him from the constant stream of unpleasant thoughts that pervaded his consciousness. He was a man of action and sitting idle, away from Council duties had only served to amplify his anger and helplessness, yet the charade had been crucial to the next part of his plan and he had had no choice but to stick to it. When Sir Alexander had returned from the Disputed Corridor, unknowingly he had furthered Orion's cause by squandering his reputation as far and wide as possible. Orion had learnt very early in life that contempt was the most easily engendered human response. Contempt bred underestimation, and underestimation often lulled his adversaries into a false sense of security. In this instance, the pretense of slow unraveling served two purposes. On one hand, it accounted for his continued absence from court and council meetings and allowed him to travel back and forth between Regstone and the land of Fair Folks while leaving the general impression that he was mourning in his tower or drinking himself unconscious in a tavern somewhere, one the other hand it lowered any threat he might have posed in the eyes of the innumerable Vandan informers that littered the court. In a way, Orion was grateful to Sir Alexander. The man's insistent slandering expedited the ruse of Orion's slow unraveling, while his general competence ensured that Orion would be able to take a hiatus from his duties without having the army fall apart at his wake. Orion had not corrected Sir Alexander when he had called him lovesick and irresponsible; after all, the most convincing of lies were based on a foundation of truth.
However, the most important part of his performance was yet to come, and Orion had plans to carry it out when King Olbrecht inevitably sent his Dragon Riders to Rubenstraad when Princess Esmeralda disappeared. In the meantime, Orion simply prayed that Sir Alexander and Sir Blaxton would not tear each other apart. Both men were pragmatic and competent on their own, however, they were no good when it came to working together, and for as long as Orion could remember, his main function as the General had been to act as a mediator between the two men.
Siegel had been a crucial part of his plan, for while Orion attended to rescuing Agatha, Siegel had constructed a fairly realistic apparition of Ice, presently occupying the top of his tower. Chamber maids were prohibited from entering his tower for the time being, and to every outsider, Orion was recuperating in his tower, willfully distancing himself from society. Jonathan was the only living soul who was aware of the entirety of his schemes.
When Orion had narrated Agatha's fate and the motive behind it to Siegel, (conveniently omitting his profoundly personal interest in her) Agatha's erstwhile lover had received the news with surprising equanimity. Orion had chosen to meet him alone at a great risk to his person as Siegel was an exemplary wizard who was more than capable of killing him in the blink of an eye, even with Eustace's ward blocking his way, but Orion was a good judge of character and he had reasoned that Agatha's unyielding loyalty to the boy must have been rooted in firm foundation, and by translation he must be of a reasonably mature, pragmatic disposition. His gamble had paid off and he had returned from the meeting unharmed and with the newly appointed Chief Wardmaker of the Castle in tow (intended to be a replacement for Eustace). Siegel, besides creating an apparition of Ice, had also created a ward for Ice in an impressively short time, one that would keep him invisible as long as he wore it. Orion had been pleased to discover that the shield of invisibility extended to him whenever he was atop Ice, which meant they were presently flying through the clouds unseen like a pair of ghosts. Orion hoped to postpone the inevitable rift that would surface between them, because Siegel Lancelot was skilled, intelligent, useful and most importantly, displayed a degree of sensibility and integrity that was rare at his age. He did not wonder at Agatha's favouritism towards the boy now that he had met him, and he was not eager to have Siegel as an enemy.
With every aspect of the plan in its place, Orion now turned himself towards the most difficult part of his journey: informing Finthalion that he had fathered a daughter and that Orion had bartered said daughter for a piece of land, handing her over to a man who was infamous for his cruelty.
'I don't want to die,' Ice hummed nervously. 'Two hundred is quite young for a dragon.'
Orion willed himself to relax and reminded Ice that Finthalion owed him his life. Surely he would not kill someone who had saved his life twice? Orion could not be too sure. While Elves were notorious for not meddling in the affairs of humans --they had stayed cruelly aloof when Malthus Vuldrethe had started butchering Azure Riders-- they were also quite well known for protecting their own kin with a fervour that humans seldom displayed.
'We could go to the other Elven territory,' Ice repeated for the thousandth time, 'any Elf can open the Chains of Damnation.'
'The other territory is too far away. We will not be able to return in time for the Prince's coronation,' Orion reminded him again.
And thus, they streaked in brooding silence through the pitch black darkness, with little to distract Orion from the memory of her haunted, emaciated frame. When he had given her away, he had been certain that Agatha would never forgive him for what he had done. What he had not foreseen was that he would not be able to forgive himself either.
***
Orion reached the edge of the Ancient Forest five days later. He disembarked from Ice well outside the wooded area, in the middle of the rolling prairie grasslands that stretched southward from the edge of the Forest, and started hiking towards the woods with long, purposeful strides. The Fair Folk lived further north, deep in the bowels of the Ancient Forest. Elves were social creatures, much as humans were, and the most densely populated city of the Elves, Ost-in-Edhil, was a further two days' walk from where Orion was located presently. Orion had learnt during his last sojourn with the Fair Folk that it was considered terrible manners for an outsider to fly directly into Ost-in-Edhil or any of the other Elven hamlets that littered the Ancient Forest. If lady luck favoured him, he would meet one of the Fair Folk inside the Ancient Forest by the next day, and then Orion would be allowed to travel on dragon-back into Ost-in-Edhil with his or her permission, but Orion understood that there was a slim chance of that happening, and had resigned himself to the prospect of hiking through the snow-covered woods for the better part of two days.
