He will consider it before asking for advice.

Neither site sounded like a mistake. The higher ground would be the easier one to hold, and a forest around it meant timber close enough to cut without dragging every beam across half the island. Walls could go up in wood first, then stone later, which was exactly the kind of smaller, finished work Winston had just asked for.

Water still argued back. Cities grew on rivers for reasons that had nothing to do with how pretty the view was. A stream could turn a mill. It could, if he ever got that far, turn more than a mill. Barges would bring stone and iron without wearing a road into ruin, and a settlement that could feed itself on current as well as on wells would last longer than one that had to carry every jar uphill.

The defensive hill would keep him safer. The bank would keep him supplied. Both mattered, and he had been king of this island for about as long as a decent meal.

Winston looked to Hippolyta before he asked. She still sat as she had through the meal, one hand near her plate, the other easy, the diadem catching the lamp. The same woman who had offered him half an island with a mason and then listed springs, banks, and aqueducts without once needing to search for the words. She knew this ground. She had known it longer than he had known he would need it.

“Which would you choose?” he asked. “If the decision were yours, and not an offer laid out for me to look decisive over.”

Hippolyta looked from the mason back across the table to him. Lamp light caught the turn of her head and held there while she measured the question, and the man who had asked it.

“If the choice were mine,” she stated, with no hunt for the answer, “I would take the river bank, my lord husband.”

Her forearm came to rest against the edge of the table as she leaned a little closer. “A fortress on a hill is easy to hold. It is also a place that teaches your people to expect a siege, and tells anyone watching exactly where you have chosen to hide. Timber will not feed you when the winter runs long, and no barge will drag heavy trade up a wet slope for the pleasure of it.”

One hand opened toward the dark beyond the flap, the direction of the stream rather than the hill. “The river is life. Movement. Trade. Power. A settlement that cannot grow will rot behind even the finest wall. Build by the water. Let the current work for you. Let the barges bring the stone when you are ready for permanence. If defense troubles you, raise your watchtowers on that higher ground and keep eyes on the horizon. Live, trade, and set your roots where the water runs.”

The look she gave him then was the one she used for him alone, consort and regent both, fond enough to soften the counsel without taking any of it back. “A king who hoards his safety on a hilltop rarely rules anything past the slope. A king who commands the water rules the island.”

So she would build it on the bank of the stream.

That was not a guess offered to please him. Hippolyta had been queen of the Amazons for centuries, if not millennia. She had led them through seasons of peace and the wars that interrupted them, and she had watched settlements rise, hold, and fail long enough to know which designs lasted and which only looked strong until the first hard winter.

Tektonia’s eyes found him the moment Hippolyta finished, bright and tightly held, as if the next breath would spill a whole worksite across the table unless he allowed it. Winston gave her a short nod.

The disappointment from earlier left her at once. Hands came up over the boards and began cutting shapes into the air, quick and sure, the reverence still in her mouth even while the mason ran ahead of the courtier.

“We can use the current at once, my king,” she stated. “If we take the upper bank we do not only sit beside the water. We put it to work. A cut from the upstream curve would carry part of the stream into a dug ditch and run it around the timber palisade. A wet moat, without sluice gates to begin with. Earthworks and a clear gradient, enough to keep the water moving so it does not stand and sour. The high ground the Lady Regent named need not be wasted either. Give me a second crew and the watchtowers can go up there from the first day. They would see the approaches long before anything reached the valley. The towers hold the height. The bank becomes the heart of your trade and your house, and—”

“Whoa. Hold on a moment. Slow down.”

The laugh that went with it was small. One hand lifted, enough to catch the rush before it ran the rest of the island for him.

Tektonia’s mouth shut. Colour rose along her cheek. The bow of her head this time was deeper than the one she had given at the flap, eagerness still plain underneath it.

“That is an incredible plan,” Winston said, “and we will get to the moats and the towers. First I want a residence. Before I command a fortress or a trading hub, I want a proper roof that does not flap when the wind blows. A comfortable, defensible home on that bank. We can grow the rest from there.”

Hippolyta’s gaze went to the mason, then back to Winston, and the look that settled on her mouth was the small, knowing one she used when a matter had already been decided and she meant to enjoy watching someone else catch up to it.

“The bank, then, and a house before a fortress,” she stated. “That much is confirmed.” The amusement stayed low, almost private, though the question was not for him. “Is that all, Tektonia, or have you further needs of your king before I send you to begin?”