The thrall-knight knelt before the throne and did not look up. The lich queen's light fell across him like a judgment. He was the ninth of her servants to be called to this chamber this cycle, and he had learned not to wonder what fate had befallen the eight before him. 'You have served adequately,' she said, her voice like wind through hollow bone. 'The garrison on the eastern reach will be transferred to your command. You will hold it for three hundred years.' He understood. Three hundred years was a span he could barely conceptualize, and she knew he could barely conceptualize it. That was the point. It was not a reward. It was a test of whether he could be trusted with her vision, which extended so far beyond the ordinary measure of a mortal life that most minds broke under the weight of trying to grasp it. 'I live to serve Her Eternal Majesty,' he said, and meant it. 'That,' she said, 'is precisely why you will remain useful.' He rose and walked backward from her presence, as was proper, and when he reached the threshold, she had already forgotten him. But he carried her will forward anyway, a single cell in the vast body politic of her kingdom, where all time was her time and all futures bent toward the satisfaction of her hunger...