Daenamaryllis (prime)/Spreading Rumors in Glaeve

Daenamaryllis took ship to Glaeve and walked along its basalt roads that stank of brine and listened to the krolvin speak of Northwatch, khans, and the soft-handed mayor who wanted to build a nation by asking permission from everyone who might one day take it from him. No one looked at her twice as she visited the many taverns, shops, and markets for she wore a shroud of deception and spoke the harsh krolvin tongue as if born to it.

She did not argue. She only let the right words fall at the right angle, as if they had been spoken long before she arrived. Gaun had already issued his challenge, formally, in the manner of his people, and Talliver had ignored it. Now, when it suited him, the mayor meant to invent a new contest, dressed up as fairness, to lure Gaun into unfamiliar terms and call it wisdom when the trap closed. The krolvin did not need proof. They needed a story that matched what they already believed about weakness.

By the time she left the market gate behind, the rumor was no longer hers. It had become theirs.