It took him a moment to notice the hush, but when he did, he looked up and around. The ship had gone quiet. The workers all paused. The group of leaguemen rushed forward on silent feet and lined the railing. Rialus still stood a way off, his eyes fixed on the docks. Following his gaze, Dariel picked out the only spot of motion among the suddenly stilled throng.

Sire Neen. He was perched in a small chair, an awkward-looking metal contraption in which he sat with his arms draped on the armrests, his chin raised and his eyes above the crowd. Two men bore his weight, one before and one behind him. They were slender but tightly muscled, with haughty looks on their faces. The crowd had parted to let them through. Most stood with their heads downturned. Strange, Dariel thought, but they were league employees. This whole section of the docks was a different world. In it, it seemed, sires were met with, well, with a good deal more deference than a prince!

Not for the first time, Dariel wondered if Corinn had truly ensured his safety. She must have, of course. He was no longer a brigand; the league was no longer allied to an enemy. What's past is past, Corinn had said. In war, crimes are done that must be forgiven during peace. That was simply the way of war and peace. As he watched Sire Neen stand and slowly ascend the gangplank, Dariel hoped the leagueman subscribed to the same doctrine.

C HAPTER

Corinn had been having the dream for weeks now, long enough that she had begun to fear it would torment her forever. It was always the same. It always trapped her in the same manner, with roughly the same progression of events, the same dreadful realizations.

It began pleasantly enough. Aliver had returned! The palace buzzed with the news of it. He had appeared alive and unscathed. He was ready to help Corinn rule the empire. Her waking mind would have balked at this for many reasons, but her dream self embraced it. Nothing seemed more wonderful than to have Aliver home and let him take burdens from her. She knew that he would forgive her for some things and praise her for others. Together, they would have the power to achieve a truly magnificent rule for everyone.

She thought all these things as she dashed through the halls and across the plazas and up the flights of stairs to reach him. Along the way she diverged into other stories, conversations, travails. She changed her cream dress for her red, or her green for one of purple velvet. These varied from dream to dream, but eventually she walked the final length of hallway, wearing a simple wrap that left one of her breasts bare in the Bethuni manner. She stepped into the room and saw a figure sitting with his back to her. She called his name without speaking, and the man rose and… it was not Aliver! The figure that stood and turned toward her was a lean man, golden haired, dressed in a black thalba and snug-fitting trousers. His eyes were an incredible gray, glinting like molten silver, no eyes of a human being and yet they were his. Hanish Mein's.

She realized that his lips had been sewn shut on her orders. And she knew that before the needle and thread pulled them tight she had ordered that a ball of twisted fishhooks be placed in his mouth, a rusty mess of a thing. She had wanted him to struggle not to swallow it, knowing that he would eventually have to and that it would rip a bloody path through his insides when he did. She had wanted him to suffer. The idea seemed horrific now. How could she ever have wanted that? At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms and forgive him everything.

Though Hanish's face was tranquil as he gazed at her, she ran toward him, thinking to cut the thread, pry his mouth open, and lift out the barbed metal. Her feet would not move her forward. She ran, but the space between them did not lessen. And then she realized the final, dreadful thing. The person was not Hanish either. It was Aaden, and he was clutching his throat as the barbs pierced through and blood gushed. The sight of it, the horror of it, was too much to bear.

She awoke thrashing, alone and tangled in the sheets of her massive bed. For a few seconds she struggled to escape the horror that clung to her, afraid that this time it would not let her go. It always did, though, and then she curled on her side, pulled her legs tight to her chest, and cried. It was a nightly torture she faced alone. She took no one to bed with her-had not done so since the night she awoke beside Hanish Mein and heard him speaking with his long-dead ancestors, promising them her life for their sakes. It was a wonder that she managed to sleep at all.

She made sure all signs of the dream and those raw memories were gone by the time she called her maidens and began her day. Indeed, she hardened herself against whatever hidden import the dream suggested and showed the world a face of utter certainty. That's what a queen was supposed to do. What a mother was supposed to do. She told herself that she was stronger for it. Perhaps she was.

The longbow is a royal weapon," Corinn said. She nocked an arrow and pinned the shaft to the bow with the crook of her finger. Aaden stood besider her, the two of them behind a marker set out to measure the distance to a target the servants had set up in the grassy area of one of the upper terraces. It was mid-morning on a clear day, the breeze intermittent and gentle, the dream tucked away for the time being.

"I know you like your sword craft, and that's fine. A king, though, rarely fights among the throng. He must know how to take a wider view, to see the entire horizon and all the players. Understand? In the thick of a battlefield you can't see beyond the ranks of soldiers surrounding you. Like that you are vulnerable, as was my brother." She pointed the weapon high into the air, straightened her bow arm, and brought it down to sight, drawing the bowstring back to her cheek as she did so. "You, Aaden, will never be vulnerable in that way."

She opened her fingers. The bow thrummed and the arrow vanished. It was in her hand one moment; then it was gone, only to announce itself the next instant. It stuck fast in the yellow central circle of the wooden target, two finger's breadths away from the ruby heart that marked the exact center.

"You never miss!" Aaden cried. He danced about. "I'd like to see you miss just once. Can you? Just miss once for me. See if you can do it!"

Corinn spoke through a smile. "Don't be foolish. Why would I ever miss what I can hit?"

"To make me feel better."

"That would be a reason, if it worked. But it wouldn't make you feel better, would it? What would, would be if you hit still closer to the jewel. Try now."

Aaden did as instructed, though he took his time about it. He selected an arrow with deliberation, holding it up before him to gauge its straightness and balance. He ran his fingertips over the fletching, touched the arrow's shaft to his yew bow, and fit the bowstring to the nock. Corinn heard one of the watching servants whisper something to another. Likely, they were commenting on the prince's fastidiousness. She had trained it into him from the start, enough so that he did not seem to conceive of archery without each step of slow preparation. When he finally bent the bow, he strained to hold it still against the draw weight.

"Limit the world," Corinn said. "See the heart. Feel the connection between you and it. Find that. You are not aiming at a distant target. You are laying the arrow on the path already created for it."

His arrow flew, but Corinn knew from the first instant that it was off course. It hit the lower corner of the target at an angle. It twisted and hung limply.