The eight had circled one another for as long as the histories bothered to record it, allies on paper and rivals underneath, every truce a held breath between one quarrel and the next.
No one climbed to the top of this world and stayed there by trusting the house across the border. The war against the Thal'Zar had been the loudest clash the Eight had seen in a generation, and wars of that size never ended where they began. Borders shifted. Debts changed hands.
Houses that had spent decades pretending to admire one another turned up fresh reasons to stop pretending. Trafalgar had spent the years since the fighting watching where the pieces came down, and marking which of them had come to rest within his reach.
