The parley tent stood exactly halfway between the lines, on ground so neutral it was nothing at all. Scorched mud. A few brave weeds. To the north, the hive's wax fortress crawled with surrendered drones now working under human whip-hands. To the south, the allied camps, sixty thousand fires breathing smoke into a gray sky.
Raven sat alone at the parley table with two cups and a jug, and waited.
She came at the hour the outline of the hills went soft.
The tent flap moved without moving, the way silk moves underwater, and Velutha entered, and the afternoon changed pressure.
She wore armor made of nothing but glamour. It looked like poured moonlight over violet skin, a coruscating second skin that hid everything and revealed all of it, thigh-high boots of shimmer, long gloves, a collar of light at her throat. Her hair moved on air that wasn't moving. Her eyes were gold without pupils, lamps behind smoke. Her tail swept the floor behind her in slow figure eights.
