"It won't work," Ember says, with conviction. "I will be good; I will follow your orders, Alpha. But she will smell betrayal on me if I come to her with secrets in my teeth, and she will defeat me, and you, and us, the pack entire, if we come at her with howling on our breath." Around her, the murmurs; she stares straight ahead, hands folded, ears perked, a signpost for the clan.

"And you know that." She takes a breath. Gulps. "The only path where Mosaic of Beri can be taken prisoner is one where she hands herself over to the pack willingly. She will not do this if I ask her; she will fight you instead, for daring to order me to ask her. You must take me prisoner and put me in peril which only you can defuse, and she will yield in order to save me. All this I share with you, packmate, Alpha of our clan, fellow daughter of Ceron."

She places one hand on her sword, drips Challenge onto the dirt. "But as a fellow daughter of Ceron, I cannot submit to betrayal of a lover." Her ears burn. This is the first time she's admitted to her packmates that what she feels for Mosaic is deeper than teasing a cutie and wringing information out of good boys and girls. "For her sake, I challenge you. Face me in any art and I will surpass you."

She won't. She knows she won't. This ends with her being used to embarrass Mosaic. But loyalty to a true lover is as virtuous as loyalty to the pack; she owes Mosaic this doomed fight to save her as much as she owes her pack information on how to overcome Mosaic. And if she, impossibly, wins, then she can throw her new weight behind Gemini's plan.

This is the way. Every Ceronian holodrama that Goldie has shared with her agrees. And Mosaic would understand too, wouldn't she? She might roll her eyes, she might make her lover a target of her barbed wit, she might even toss Ember off a cliff. But she knew she was falling in love with a Ceronian, and the bonds of the pack are just as much chains as the bonds of the heart ([i]Beneath the Blood-Wetted Moons[/i], dir. Xiophilina Entressus). So what if she will still lose? A knight is a humiliation-seeking device ([i]The Knight of the Forfeit,[/i] dir. Nathan Svensson) and to share bonds with a lover is the third aim of romance ([i]Dragon Among Lotuses[/i], dir. "Simplicitas Pirata").

But Mosaic is worthy of being the cause of her first true pack challenge. Will you honor that, Taurus? Or are you jealous of her immeasurable virtues, not least of which is the thing she can do with her tongue?