Chapter One
INNEL'S EYES adjusted to the dimly lit warehouse room, longer than it was wide. Barrels and boxes lined the walls.
His second in command, Nalas, pressed a woman toward him.
"The spice merchant, ser. Her cart wheel broke near Carpuna." His tone softened a bit. "Go on, woman. Tell him what you told me. About the boy."
At the far end of the room sat a boy, perhaps seven.
"Be quick about it," Innel said. He looked the woman over. An occasional informant, travel jacket and trousers caked with the mud of the season, her face weathered.
"Ya, your—" she began.
"No titles," interjected Nalas.
She nodded nervously and Innel stifled impatience. He could not afford the time it had taken to come here from the palace, or the effort to depart unseen. But if it had to do with House Etallan...
"Last I was here in Yarpin," the woman said. "Last season, ser. I heard about the..." She trailed off, her eyes sliding away from Innel's face.
It wasn't a hard guess. "The Queen's Justice," he said.
"Ya, ser," she said, clearly relieved not to need another name for the event. "I brought the boy, to show you. You been so good to me before."
Meaning that he'd paid her well, and she expected him to do it again. "We'll see what it's worth, what you've got. What about the boy?"
"His name, ser."
"Which is?"
"Ask him," she said in a bare whisper.
Innel gave an exhale that came out as a growl. "Tell me his name."
She cringed, lips moving silently to shape a word. Innel had been raised in the Royal Cohort, where lip-reading was a matter of survival.
"Eregin?" he asked.
She nodded mutely.
The name of a dead man, born to House Etallan, whose head Innel had removed not long ago, during the very event that the woman had not wanted to name.
It had not been a private matter, happening as it did in front of the queen, House Etallan's eparch and high family, and countless guards. The story of Innel's actions had spread like wildfire.
In one motion, Innel stepped forward, right foot touching back exactly as the blade found its target. Metal sliced through neck and vertebrae, and Eregin's head came clean off. His knees buckled, back arched, and the bloody, open neck sprayed backward across Etallan's eparch, Minister of Chimes, and Tokerae, spattering their faces and clothes with red.
It had been one of Innel's finest moments. He had done the nearly impossible: an off-hand stroke. An ideal cut. The head had gone flying.
In truth, the cut was closer to impossible than he would admit aloud. If he had not had the seer's advice well in advance, it could never have happened. The seer, who for reasons that now escaped him, he had released.
Well, he still had the seer's sister, Dirina—Nalas's betrothed—and Dirina's son, Pas. Sooner or later, Amarta dua Seer al Arunkel would return to see her family.
As for the beheading—the reprimand to the House of Metal—as far as Innel was concerned, that was barely a start on the debt that House owed the crown for their treason.
Innel looked at the child at the end of the room. Eregin was a House name. Unusual for a town-child, but not unheard of.
"So?" he asked the woman.
"His brother has the same name, ser."
That was beyond unusual. Innel walked the room and stood over the seated child.
"Your name?"
The child looked up and trembled.
"Eregin, ser."
"Your brother?"
"Eregin as well, ser."
"How did you come by this name?"
"Some men visited. A few months ago. All the boys got the name, ser, not only us."
"I see. Were these men wearing gray and orange livery?"
A furtive nod.
"Gave coin to your parents, did they?"
Another nod.
House Etallan, then, both coin and colors, and no attempt to hide it.
Innel walked back, and to his steward and most trusted servant, Srel.
"Who holds Carpuna's charters?" he asked. House charters were complicated enough that the paperwork describing them could fill a large room, and often did.
"The crown, ser," answered Srel. "Assessment warrant."
"Ours, then." He turned to the woman. "Your back cart wheel. This happen often?"
"Never. Damned wheelwright," she muttered, annoyance overtaking fear. "Knows the roads up river well enough to sketch me a map, but couldn't keep my wheels on. Be having a talk with him when I get back to Dalgo, see if I don't."
"Don't."
She twitched. "Ya, ser."
Innel made eye contact with Srel, who raised an eyebrow inquiringly. No accident, that wheel. "Get the wheelwright's name," Innel told him, knowing Srel was good with people in ways Innel sometimes wasn't.
Srel took the woman's arm, patting it, and took her a handful of strides away as he murmured about how happy the Lord Commander was with her service.
Nalas tilted his head closer. "What is this, ser? Bribes to change names? A tribute to a headless man?"
Innel shook his head. "A message."
For a long moment, Innel considered sending the boy's head to House Etallan, to join the original Eregin's. A somewhat poetic reply, perhaps.
But the child's head would mean nothing compared to the weightier head Innel had already provided.
"Just the boys?" Innel asked the spice merchant.
The woman looked up from her conversation with Srel. "Na. The girls, too. Didn't the boy say, ser?"
Innel strode to her, took her shoulders, stared down into her eyes. "To what, damn you?"
Her mouth hung open and he gripped harder.
"Sachare," she yelped. "Sachare."
Sachare. Just as Innel stood between queen Cern and all external threats, Sachare—Cern's chamberlain—was the final defense of the monarch of the Arunkel empire.
And Innel's unborn child.
In anger, he thrust the woman away. She stumbled backward. Srel caught her by the arm, keeping her from falling.
Now the pieces fell into place. House Etallan was drawing an equivalence between Eregin's head and Sachare's. But Sachare was still alive.
It was a threat.
Innel gestured abruptly, and Srel hastily ushered the woman out of the room.
Nalas stepped to his side. "What now, ser?"
Innel considered the message.
"Signpost the town," he said. "With the children."
Nalas blinked. "Ser? They are surely blameless in this."
"Irrelevant. Etallan has sent a message and a message must be returned."
"But, ser..." Nalas's voice was quiet.
"What?"
Nalas stared at the boy at the other end of the room. "He's the same age as Pas. Once I marry Dirina, Pas is my son. But really, he's my son already."
Innel turned to face his second and made a dismissive sound. "That boy is nothing like Pas. Listen, Nalas." He put a hand on the other man's shoulder. "The Houses are not yet secure in Cern's grasp, and Etallan has every reason to rock her throne. Much will stabilize after the heir is born. Protect the queen, you protect your son. You know this."
Nalas nodded. "But could we not simply bribe Carpuna to change the children's names back?"
"A weak response. If I could send troops to House Etallan's front door to smelt the entire House to slag, I would." That was the message he really wanted to send, but that would mean a civil war, one that the monarchy could not win.
Yet.
The problem was that House Etallan was nearly as powerful as the monarchy itself, a problem Innel intended to solve. He just needed some time.
He wished he had not so willingly parted with his best weapon. What an odd mood he'd been in that day, when he released the seer from the contract he'd worked so hard to bind her to. Innel had just found out that his brother, Pohut—dead at Innel's hand—had not betrayed him. In that profoundly unsettled frame of mind, Amarta had come to him.
Release me, she had said. It will be worth a great deal to you to have done so.
Now he weighed this vague promise against his current need, and wondered if he'd been taken in. If anything happened to Cern, and the seer could have prevented it...
No. Such thoughts led in circles.
He turned to Nalas, who he judged needed more convincing.
"They threaten my Cohort sister Sachare, and thus the queen, and my child, the presumptive Anandynar heir. Our response must make it clear how far we will go to defend her. A well-phrased reply, Nalas—written in blood—cannot be misunderstood."
Nalas appeared to struggle with this. After a long moment, he nodded soberly. "Rope or stakes, ser?"
Etallan, the House of Metal, took pride in the precision of their casting and smelting. They would keenly note the details.
"Stakes. Make them iron." Innel imagined dozens of children, nailed up as signposts. "Paint their names on their foreheads. Only the boys. Perhaps the screams and blood of their children will make the townspeople wiser about taking coin to convey a threat to the queen."
Nalas let out a weighty sigh, and looked at the boy. "And this one?"
"Send him home to join the rest."
Innel's thoughts returned to Cern. In the catalog of threats arrayed against her, Etallan was only first of many. But she was occupied, mind and body, making a child, so it fell to him to make sure nothing could reach her.
He must bring Etallan to heel. And he would.
Innel strode the palace halls, footfalls landing loudly enough to give those ahead of him notice to flatten themselves to the walls as his entourage passed.
He must get to the queen's wing, assure himself that Cern was well, and talk with Sachare. Nothing could be more important.
"Lord Commander?" A messenger dashed along to catch up, holding out a blue envelope. Srel took it, clasping the woman's shoulder briefly as he hurried to catch up with Innel.
"Lord Commander, I need—" From the other side, Nalas muttered fast words to a captain, accepting a scroll, sealed in red and black, marking it as crown business.
Innel's gaze swept across those lining the walls. A pair of green-liveried servants, a blond work-slave at their side. A triad of gray-clad clerks, skullcaps trimmed in red. A House liaison from Great House Helata, dressed in formal green-and-blue. Here, Innel had no doubt, to discuss the crown's shipbuilding contracts. An important discussion, and Innel should be there. But no—it must all wait.
"Lord Commander."
A gaunt old man stood in the center of the hallway, white hair braided into a tight tail down the back of his red-and-black livery. His stance was wide, as if he actually thought he might be able to block Innel's path.
He was the queen's seneschal, and had served her father the old king before that. He might even be ancient enough to have served the Grandmother Queen.
Anger flashed through Innel at the seneschal's audacity. For a moment he thought to barrel through the old man, who seemed little more substantial than a desiccated reed.
He considered how that story would sound across the palace, and instead came to a stop. They locked gazes.
"What?" Innel demanded.
The seneschal gave him a thin-lipped look. "You ignore my messages, Royal Consort."
Innel noted the pointed use of his other title. "I'm a bit busy."
"The Houses are about to have a number of weddings."
"Excellent," Innel said. "I approve."
"You'll care more, Consort, when the Charter Courts begin."
House weddings were one of the many ways aristos built mutual dependencies, preparing for the real battles of the Charter Courts. But the frenzy didn't usually start this early.
"The Courts are five years hence," Innel said. "This matter can wait."
"Four years and five months," corrected the seneschal. "I would be most pleased to spare your attention and take this directly to the Queen. Is that your will, ser?"
A pointed comment, as the seneschal had been kept away from the queen's wing, along with countless others. It was not a good time for Cern to be visible and talked about. Not until she looked healthier.
Not flattering, the comparisons between Cern and her great-grandmother, Queen Niala, who when similarly pregnant, some four months in, had led Arunkel troops into battle.
"This is not hallway conversation, Seneschal."
"No it is not, Consort," the seneschal agreed. "To judge by your unattractive expression, I am no more amused by the necessity of tracking you down to have it than you are."
Innel's voice dropped. "Srel will address."
The seneschal managed a derisive laugh, with no hint of a smile. "The queen will address, Consort. She should attend these weddings, or have someone suitable represent her."
Which would not be Innel, no one needed to say. Innel scanned the onlookers at the walls to see who might understand more than was being spoken.
"I go to see her now," Innel said. "I will discuss it with her, then with you."
"I eagerly await your informed guidance, Consort," said the seneschal, somewhat sourly, but he moved out of Innel's way, allowing the entourage to press forward to the queen's wing.
Once there, Innel paused briefly to assess the queensguards, then those at the next door, and the next, until he and his men stood outside the queen's antechamber.
"Double the guards here," he said softly to Nalas.
Then he entered, his mind far from the painted silks and woven geometries of cascading gemstones that adorned the walls.
"Where have you been?" Sachare asked, grabbing him by the arm, not waiting for an answer. "Go in. She wants you."
His Cohort sister was tall for a woman, yet shorter than Innel by a head. A child of Great House Nital—the House of Wood—Sachare had long ago sworn to serve the Anandynar princess instead.
She wore the queen's colors. Magenta and black robes of heavy silk brushed the tops of her slippered feet, the gold brocade on the collar and shoulders a repeating pattern of the royal crest.
At her neck glinted a chain of rubies, the color of blood. Innel gaped, thinking of the message from Carpuna.
"You'd better be clean, boy," Sachare said. "Her sense of smell's quite good these days."
"I need to talk to you," Innel said, but Sachare firmly herded him toward the door that led to the queen's chambers. "Am I clean enough?"
She leaned in close, took a sniff, sighed. "Barely. Don't bore her."
"I never do."
Sachare snickered, and pressed him forward.
Innel went inside.
An ornate stone-topped stove kept the room warm. Near by on the floor lounged the two large dichu dogs.
Innel remembered a time when Cern would not even have considered letting the dogs in her room. Then they had saved her life.
The dark-muzzled Chula opened one gold eye to see who had entered. Tashu raised his brindled head. They recognized Innel. The eye shut, the head dropped.
"Your majesty," Innel said.
From a nest of pillows, the queen of the Arunkel empire reached out a hand toward Innel.
"Come here."
He did. She took his fingers, pulled him close for a kiss. He let himself down on the edge of the bed, careful not to put any weight on her belly.
Her tongue found its way into his mouth, her hand to the back of his neck. Her touch was hungry, her breath hard.
His hand went to her breast, and hers to his pants. Pregnancy, apparently, was an excellent aphrodisiac.
Suddenly she yelped. He pulled back, alarmed. She curled onto her side, around her stomach, and whimpered.
"What?" he breathed. "Did I—"
She shook her head, clutching her abdomen.
He was on his feet. "I'll call the doctors."
"No, no. Just a little discomfort." She inhaled sharply. "Entirely normal, they tell me."
"They'll give another answer when they hurt as much as you do, Your Grace," he said darkly.
"Innel. Stop that. There, see? It's passed." She rolled over on to her back, still breathing hard.
His amorousness of moments ago had dissolved in the heat of terror.
"Your Grace."
She sat up in the bed, held his look. "See? I'm entirely well."
She wasn't, he could tell at a glance. The dark hollows around her eyes and paleness of her skin did nothing to change his mind. He slowly shook his head.
"The first one is hardest, they tell me," she said. "The winter child is never mild." She snorted at the aphorism. "The next one will be easier."
The next?
Innel felt abruptly light-headed, as if he'd just swallowed the finest of adept wines. Traditionally served in thimble-sized cups, he felt as if he'd quaffed a mug of it.
Strangely, it had not occurred to him until just this moment to think beyond one child. Without considering, he laid a light touch on the gentle curve of her belly. Her hand covered his. She smiled. A tired smile, but it seemed genuine.
"Not tonight, after all," she said, releasing his hand.
He stood from the bed. "At your service, my queen."
Wearily she asked, "Is there anything that requires my attention?"
"Nothing that can't wait."
"What about Etallan?"
"I'll take care of Etallan," he said flatly.
"Their path must be smoothed, Innel. They have been chastised and must be redeemed."
Innel nodded slowly. Now was not the time to explain about the threat Etallan had just sent.
"See what you can do to repair the rift, hmm? Too soon, perhaps, for a friendly visit with Tok, though." She laughed slightly.
Tokerae dele Etallan, their Cohort sibling, and eparch-heir of House Etallan.
Also Eregin's cousin.
"Too soon, Your Grace," he replied at the joke, smiling at the hope it gave him, to see her laugh.
She drew herself straighter in the bed, wincing slightly. "The Houses must be juggled with care, like the sharp knives they are. Etallan must be handled cautiously." As she exhaled, he listened for the raggedness in her breath. "It is a test of my rule, how well the Charter Courts go."
"Yes, but first, my lady..." He glanced at her belly and then her face. "Your health. The child's health." He hesitated. "I could find another mage."
She shook her head. "We must not do that again. Against our laws, still. My laws."
"Times are changing."
"Not as fast as we might like." Her stare was distant. "Niala expanded the borders of Arunkel when she was pregnant. Each of the four times. Surely I can have just this one without so much fuss."
"The doctors, then."
"No. I'm tired, is all. Let me sleep." She sounded cross and waved him away, sinking back among the pillows, burrowing her head under the covers.
"Your Grace," he muttered, staring at the slight curve of her belly through the blankets.
Innel had come to the palace as a child with his older brother, Pohut. Inducted into the Princess's Cohort, they had studied and struggled, faced insults and brutal bullying. Then years seducing Cern.
Staring at his child-to-be, it came to Innel that in all his learning about the Arunkel monarchy and blood lines and ascendancies, he had never really grasped that someday he might be part of that lineage.
Not until now.
"That was fast," Sachare said.
"She's tired and sleeps. Sacha, I must tell you something. I have a message from Etallan."
"Oh?"
"The first part of it was 'Eregin'."
"Ah? Has he lost something?" She snickered.
"The second part was your name."
Her smile faded as she gathered the meaning. Then she shook her head. "None of us who are this close to her—" a nod at the door "—expect otherwise. But they did try before." She touched a fist to her chest, in the very spot that she had taken a spear to stand between it and Cern. "Let them try again."
Them. It was still not known who orchestrated the attack on Cern that day in the kennels. Nothing linked it to Etallan, of course.
"I am doubling the queensguards," Innel said.
"Oh, by the Hells—I'm already tripping over them. This is Cohort games, nothing more. The move is to get you to react, Innel. And behold." She gestured at him with both hands. "You react."
He ignored this, walking the room, making a survey of the adjoining closet, full of Cern's many red, gold, and black cloaks. He ran eyes over the antechamber ceiling and fingers across the baseboards.
"Guards in here as well," he said.
"What? No. We've never had guards this close in."
"We will now. The queen's security comes first."
"What do you think I am, Innel?"
He turned to face her. "Insufficient?"
A guttural sound came from her throat. She made an abrupt, inviting gesture. "Come on. See if you can take me, Cohort brother. I win, I decide."
Sachare was a tall woman, but had nowhere near Innel's bulk. He was tempted—it would end the argument quickly.
"This is no game, Sacha," he said, deciding against it. If he so much as bruised her, Cern would be livid.
She smirked. "While you were training with wooden swords, I was taken aside to learn to protect her, close in. Come on, Innel, you've never seen what I can do. Aren't you even a little curious?"
He was, actually. She read it in his expression, her smile going wide. "Innel, I want to say that you—" she began. Then, faster than he expected, she had sunk the fingers of a rigid hand into his stomach.
Nothing more than painful, a point scored. He snapped out to grab her arm, his hand closing on empty air.
"You're slow, Innel. I decide about the guards."
"I'm Lord Commander, Sacha. Did no one tell you?"
"In title only?" she taunted.
From anyone else, an unforgivable insult. But the Cohort was groomed by fierce competition, from the earliest years. This was familiar ground.
They both crouched slightly, gazes sweeping each other for nuances of balance and tension, the signs of movement to come.
She grinned with pleasure. He wondered how fast he could get a choke hold on her.
From the next room, Cern screamed.
A day became two, then three, then four. One doctor, a second. A third was brought. A fourth. The best in the empire's capital, by reputation and standing.
But still Cern weakened.
Innel spoke to each one, taking their measure, then described to them in detail how tightly entwined their futures were to that of the queen.
Innel slept only when he could no longer stand. The rest of the time, he waited in the antechamber, pacing.
This morning, he stumbled from his room. Sachare diverted him from his near sprint to the queen's door.
"Stop threatening the doctors," she hissed. "You terrify them, Innel."
"Good. Let me show them Execution Square, while I'm about it. It'll sharpen their wits."
"They tell me you won't let them leave the queen's wing."
He met her look. "No one must know, Sacha. No one must even guess."
She nodded grudgingly. "Give them time to work, Innel."
But Cern was running out of time. And if the worst happened?
Sachare could go home to House Nital. Innel had no House to return to, and no one but Cern to catch him if he fell.
He looked to Cern's door, aching to go inside to see with his own eyes that she still breathed. But a thought had come to him, and then a decision. He turned to leave.
Sachare must have read something in his face. "Innel? Where are you—"
He was out the door before she could finish the question.
The moment he exited the queen's wing, Innel was faced with a crowd of messengers and liaisons. He pressed through them, hurrying to his office.
On Innel's large desk sat neat piles of petitions and correspondences, all requiring attention.
Srel turned to look at him.
Innel's gaze slid to what was on top of the pile, presumably the most urgent. A petition for water rights, by the Lesser House Keramos, vassal to Etallan. He slid it to the bottom of the pile.
"What do they say, Srel?" he asked, mind already on his plans. He must go into the city unseen, and soon.
"They wonder, ser: is it serious?"
"And?"
"Most believe she is recovering from a minor illness, the many doctors an abundance of concern by a nervous Consort."
"Good." The best deceptions were built on splinters of truth. "Anything else?"
"They wonder if she will snub the weddings."
The weddings. If she recovered, no one need ever know how bad it had been, but only if appearances were kept now. In his mind's eye, he saw the upside-down tree of the Anandynar line that had produced in Cern esse Arunkel. The leaves were sparse, but Cern's aunt Lismar had made a few branches.
Who among Cern's second and third cousins might usefully be pressed into the service of representing the crown?
"Citriona Anandynar," Innel said, seating himself at his desk. "Twelve?"
"Thirteen, ser."
"See if she can be managed."
"Yes, ser."
A knock at the door. Srel opened it, but before he could issue a greeting, the queen's seneschal pushed past.
The old man stomped to Innel's desk and glared, his face twisting into barely contained fury.
"Do you know how many lies I have told for you this last five-day, Lord Commander? No, because you have shut me out. You play a dangerous game, Lord Commander. A fool's game."
"How dare you speak to me—" Innel began, half out of his chair.
The old man's eyes suddenly went wide and his mouth contorted in pain. It was such an uncharacteristic expression that Innel's next words died on his lips.
The seneschal put hands on the desk and leaned forward. He whispered hoarsely. "I have served three generations of Anandynar monarchs. You came to your position—what? Four years ago? Four whole years?" The old man was trembling.
"Yes," Innel said uncertainly.
The seneschal made a sound in his throat, a swallowed sob. "She is my queen, too, Consort. Tell me what is happening. Let me help."
Innel lowered himself into his chair and contemplated the man in front of him.
"We need a mage," Innel said softly. "Keyretura, if you can find him. And fast."
In a blink, the seneschal's expression changed. He gave Innel a smug smile and tapped a knuckle on the wood.
"Consider it done, Consort. Consider it done."
"Do not disturb me," the mage Keyretura had said, as he went Cern's room.
How long ago had that been?
Innel would give a great deal to know the future right now, and what it would take to make it the one he wanted it to be. The seer...if he hadn't let her go...
She would probably be telling him the many ways in which his life was about to crumble. Those futures he needed no help envisioning.
"Stop it," Sachare snapped at him. Then, more softly, "Innel, please."
He found that he had been pacing the length of the antechamber, as fast as his long legs would carry him, making it a short walk in each direction.
"How long has it been?" he asked, facing her.
Neither of them had slept in days. She looked drawn and haggard. He probably did, too.
"Six bells."
They were both whispering, but for no good reason; the door to Cern's bedchamber was heavy enough to muffle all but the loudest sounds. In any case, the mage could hear them right through it if he wanted to.
In the days it had taken for the seneschal to find Keyretura and quietly bring him to the palace, Cern had gone from poor to worse. Truly, it had been a miracle that the mage was in-city at all, and willing to come, after last time.
Credit to the seneschal for that. Innel would not exclude him again.
His thoughts churned. No more missteps. Innel's every action must be meticulously unassailable. Because if Cern...
He would not even think it. The mage would heal her and would save Innel's winter child. He must.
But if he could not, then...
He realized that he had been staring at Sachare, and she at him, statue-like, their gazes locked.
The door to Cern's bedchamber opened. Out stepped the dark-skinned black-robed Perripin mage. He closed the door behind himself and looked at them.
"This is not good," he said.
The words swam through Innel's mind like starlings in a windstorm. He tried to corral them into some order so that they might mean something different, but could not.
"But you can heal her," Innel said, suddenly hoarse. Not a question. It could not be a question.
"No," answered Keyretura.
Innel felt the blood drain from his face. Sachare's mouth dropped open.
"More money?" Innel croaked. "What do you need? Anything."
Keyretura made a sound that might have been amusement or disgust. "I came when your man called, Iliban, something that does not much please me. Coin for my trouble, yes, but you mistake my meaning. It is this: the tangled patterns of your queen's pregnancy go deep. I do not have a solution."
"Who has done this to her?" Innel demanded.
"Her body has done this to her," Keyretura answered blandly. "Nothing more."
Sachare seemed to crumple. She slid to her knees. "High One, we beg you. Is there anything at all that we can—"
"You must try," Innel said, cutting her off. "She is..." Irreplaceable, he thought, but it was not the right word. "The child is..."
Irreplaceable.
"Silence," Keyretura snapped, making a short, abrupt gesture with one finger.
Innel's throat suddenly constricted. He could barely breathe, let alone speak. On her knees, Sachare gasped like a fish.
"You listen poorly, Iliban. Do I have your attention now?"
Innel and Sachare both nodded vigorously.
"Your queen's best chance lies with my uslata, Marisel. She knows the subtle patterns of pregnancy and how to resolve its fragile complexities."
Innel swallowed, found that he could speak again. "Marisel dua Mage? But she..." Innel and Marisel had not parted on the best of terms. "Are you certain?"
Keyretura turned to Innel. Suddenly the room felt very bright, and entirely too warm. "Am I certain?"
"I apologize, High One," Innel said quickly. "If you say it is so, it is so. I will send for her. Will she come?"
"That is another matter. I'll pen a letter for you. Your release of Amarta dua Seer may also work in your favor. But you have no choice. Your queen is weak. If you do nothing, the pregnancy disorder will draw both child and mother through death's door."
Innel's heart pounded in his chest, his pulse surged in his ears. "A messenger. Our fastest horses—"
"A messenger will not convince her."
"You, then. High One, You could persuade her."
"Certainly. But Marisel is a hard ride and many days away. Who will keep your queen alive while you travel?"
Innel's mouth opened and closed.
"Yes, you, Lord Commander," the mage said, now clearly amused. "Go. Perhaps you can convince my uslata of your profound need and abject humility."
At the moment, that did not seem hard. Innel had never felt so desperate.
These last months had been floor-to-ceiling problems, and Innel had spread himself across them all, like bridges of silk holding together ships in a storm, while pretending that Cern was only mildly incapacitated. He had needed to comport himself across the palace with confidence, knowing that his world might come crashing down at any moment.
Now the clutter in his mind cleared. The prospect of useful action was a powerful tonic.
"I'll assemble riders and be away within a bell." Innel was already sketching what he would say to Maris and who he could trust at his side.
A few men only. Ride light, ride fast.
"Absent her willingness to aid your cause," Keyretura said, "the sensible course might be to offer yourself to her taslata for his study of anatomy."
Innel gave the clearly amused mage a startled look. "What?"
"Should your petition fail, Iliban, your queen dies. You might be better off to surrender your life there than return for a stay in Execution Square, which I observe to be conveniently unoccupied. No less painful, to be used for such a study, but perhaps the lesser of the two disgraces. What do you think, Lord Commander?"
Innel decided that the mage's question didn't require an answer. He lurched for the door.