Even hearing the bells, he had no idea of the time when the sound of boots on the tower steps reached him once more. He heard voices as well, and so knew who had come before his brothers’ faces appeared in the door grate.

“Do you want me to let them in?” the guard asked.

Grigor nodded. “Would you take the food away, as well?”

The soldier didn’t answer, but after letting Henthas and Numar into the chamber, he removed the plate, though he left Grigor’s water.

His brothers removed their swords and daggers, handing them to the guard as he left the chamber.

“Go to the base of the tower,” Numar said, as the man stepped back into the corridor. “We wish to speak with our brother in private one last time.”

“No, don’t,” Grigor called to him. “Stay where you are. Anything we have to say to each other we can say in front of you.”

Grigor saw the guard falter, and for an instant he thought that the man might actually stay.

Numar must have seen this as well. He gestured at Henthas. “This man is your duke now, and I am to be regent to the new queen. You take your orders from us, not from the traitor. Do you understand?”

“Of course, my lord.” The guard cast a quick look at Grigor before closing the chamber door and scurrying to the stairs like a frightened boy. It might have been a trick of the light, the bright sun from the narrow windows mingling with the glow of the torches burning in the corridor, but it seemed to Grigor that there had been an apology in the man’s eyes.

“You didn’t actually think I’d let him overhear my confession, did you?” Numar asked, when they could no longer hear the guard on the stairs.

Grigor looked quickly at Henthas, gauging his reaction.

“He knows, brother,” Numar said with a grin.

Henthas leered at him, looking every bit the jackal.

“He was horrified at first, but when I offered him the dukedom, he recovered quite quickly.” The younger man glanced at Henthas, his eyes dancing. “I think he plans to make an attempt on my life at some point, hoping to take the regency as well. At which point I’ll have to kill him. But for now, we’re both content to watch you hang.”

“You’d really let him do this?” Grigor asked, ignoring Numar for the moment.

Henthas shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I? The regency was never going to be mine. At least with you gone, I can claim Solkara as my own.”

“Only as long as he lets you. If he’s willing to do this to me, what’s to stop him from having you killed so that he can take the dukedom?”

“You forget, brother,” Numar broke in, “Henthas is doing this to you as much as I am. He may not have conceived the plan, but he’s certainly embraced it as if it were his own.”

“I don’t think you and Carden ever grasped just how much I’ve hated you both,” Henthas said. “Perhaps now you do.”

Grigor stared at one of them, then the other, not knowing what to say. Henthas, with his fine features and dark blue eyes, looked very much like their father. So had Carden, and so, he had long been told, did Grigor himself. But though Numar favored their mother-lean and tall, his hair the color of wheat, his eyes a warm, rich brown-he was most like Tomaz in temper and intellect. While the older boys had toyed with swords, playing at being warriors, Numar sat on their father’s knee and learned what it meant to be a noble, to command armies, and to survive in the courts. In the world of children, where strength of body was everything, he had been the weakest. But over the years, he had honed his mind into a weapon that none of them could match. Grigor, standing with his arms and legs in chains, felt as if he were seeing his youngest brother for the first time.

“Look at him, Henthas,” Numar said, the grin still on his youthful face. “He has no answer for you. You’ve managed what I could not. You’ve silenced the Jackal.”

Still Grigor stared at him, until Numar’s smile faded, leaving an expression of vague discomfort.

“What is it you’re looking at?” he asked, his voice tight.

“A man I thought I knew, but didn’t. A brother who has managed to become more than I ever was. But mostly, I expect I’m looking at Aneira’s next king.”

At that, the smile returned. “Yes,” Numar said. “I believe you are.”

The door to the prison tower of Castle Solkara opened just as the dawn bells began to ring in the city. Two guards emerged from the arched stone doorway, followed by the traitor, and then a second pair of soldiers. Chofya stood just in front of the doorway with her daughter, the future queen, beside her. The traitor’s brothers stood behind her, and Brail and the rest of the dukes with their ministers stood in a line behind them. More than a thousand soldiers, most from Solkara, but many from Aneira’s other dukedoms were also there, blades drawn, their young faces grave. It was a cold, still morning. The sky was the color of dull armor and a few small flakes of snow fell softly upon the castle and its wards.

Grigor wore a soldier’s garb-a dun shirt, matching trousers, boots, and an empty scabbard on his belt. He held himself straight, his head raised, defiance in his eyes. Stopping before the queen, with soldiers on either side of him, he appeared to tower over her, as if he were an inquisitor, and she the prisoner. For her part, Chofya looked to have recovered sufficiently from the attempt upon her life. Her face remained as colorless as a Qirsi’s, and she appeared thin almost to the point of frailty. But she stood without aid and when she spoke it was in a voice both clear and strong.

“Grigor, duke of Solkara, marquess of Renbrere, you are hereby accused of murder by poison, treason against the queen of Aneira, and violence against the Council of Dukes. Do you wish to be heard before sentence is passed?”

“Only to repeat what I have already said. I am innocent in this matter, made to appear a murderer by those who have the most to gain from my execution. I speak of my brothers, though it grieves me to say so. I’m as much their victim as you are, Your Highness. Indeed more so, since you will survive this day, and I will not.”

An angry murmur swept through the formation of soldiers.

“Hang him now!” one man cried.

Several of the others cheered.

Chofya allowed herself a grim smile. “As you can hear, your denials carry little weight with the men of Aneira. You are not fit to be king, nor even to walk among the living of this great kingdom. Thus, with the consent of the Council of Dukes and the support of my people, and in the sight of Ean and his servants here in the living world, I decree that you shall be hanged as a traitor, then drawn and quartered as all are who betray the crown and the land. May Bian show you mercy.”

Grigor’s expression did not change, but his face blanched, and his knees appeared to buckle, so that the guards standing on either side of him had to keep him from falling.

Chofya nodded once, then turned, and taking her daughter’s hand, started walking toward the castle’s city gate. Numar and Henthas followed, as did the guards escorting Grigor, the dukes and ministers, and finally the soldiers.

“Have you ever witnessed an execution, First Minister?” Brail asked Fetnalla, who was walking next to him.

“No, my lord.”

“I find them… disturbing. Even in a circumstance like this one, I believe there’s little satisfaction to be found in them.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The procession slowed as the dukes began to file through the gate.

“I couldn’t help overhearing you, Brail,” Tebeo said from behind them. “Do you mean to say that you don’t think Grigor should be put to death?”

The duke shook his head, though he didn’t look back at Dantrielle. “I don’t mean that at all. I just don’t believe there’s anything to be gained from making his hanging into a public event. It’s an execution, not a festival.”

Tebeo nodded, falling silent. In another few moments they passed through the gate and into the city of Solkara. Even here, on the steep incline nearest the castle, people lined the street, shouting obscenities at Grigor and cheering the queen, her daughter, and the dukes.