"Mother!" Aaden called, suddenly discovering he was being watched. He treaded water, losing his rhythm for a moment so that his mouth dipped below the surface. Up an instant later, he spat, then spoke. "Mother, Devlyn saw a hookfish in the pools. As long as a man, he said!"

Corinn stepped to the raised lip of the pool. She gestured for the boys to swim to the edge nearest her. "A hookfish, you say?" Aaden nodded. Devlyn did not, but he swam with a motion somehow more graceful than the prince's. "What's a hookfish?"

"You don't know?" Aaden asked, though he seemed quite pleased to hear it. "It's one of those long, scaly things with barbs down their tails. Like hooks but sharp as Marah swords."

The queen could not help but bend and wipe the light strands of hair back from the panting boy's forehead. Though the very notion of such a fish swimming below her son's feet stirred a flash of unease through her, she knew it was nonsense. The pools had been safe since the sixth king built them for his wife generations ago. Why do boys always wish for monsters? she wondered. Out loud, she said, "Really?"

"Yes! And they have teeth sharp enough to cut to the bone! If they bite you, they don't let go, even if they're taken out of the water. Right, Devlyn?"

The other boy did not immediately meet the queen's gaze. Speaking to the stone rim just in front of him, he said, "Yes. They have green eyes."

"You saw the color of its eyes? That's alarming. Why, then, are you still in the water?"

"To hunt it," Devlyn answered.

Aaden nodded, but Corinn kept her eyes on the other boy. He was handsome enough in his way, with dark eyes and curls of brown hair that glistened with moisture. He would be stunning in a few years, a notion that did not sit altogether comfortably with her. Would he, in olive-skinned beauty, outshine Aaden? "And I suppose you plan to slay the beast yourself?" she asked.

To her surprise, the boy did not miss a beat in responding. "No," he said, his eyes darting up to hers for just a moment, "Aaden will. I'm his second."

Ah, so you do know your place? "And as a second, what do you do for Aaden?"

"Whatever he needs me to. Anything. I have to keep him safe."

"I'll be the king, Mother," Aaden said, sounding older, a bit weary, for a moment. "He knows that. He knows to protect me. That's why-"

Aaden stopped himself, but not before Corinn knew what he had almost said. He had nearly mentioned his wish that Devlyn become his chancellor again. He had stopped, knowing that she would not welcome the conversation in front of the boy. That was wise, although it was obvious from the way both boys' faces went momentarily blank that they had discussed the matter between themselves. That was not as wise.

Or perhaps it was… perhaps a prince needed to secure his companions when he was young. Perhaps Aaden would be better off than she, with the pack of ambitious fools she had to contend with. So thinking, she was reminded of the day's meeting. She bade the boys safe hunting and left them again enlivened and shouting excitement to each other.

The Queen's Council was just one of the many panels of advisers she consulted. Unlike the others-who humbly brought her hard facts on the various subjects important to her rule-the members of the Queen's Council tended to inflate their own import. She had accepted that she needed them, but she did not trust them. If they had not been necessary in order to keep up the appearance that she honored traditions, she would have dismissed them and bought advice, entirely with coin, from agents of her choosing.

Early in her rule she had selected some of the ten councillors herself in an effort to create a truly guiding body. She had handpicked Jason, her former tutor. It had not taken her long, however, to realize that most of her choices were just as self-interested as those thrust upon her by tradition. She had stopped trying to make them friends long ago. With the Council members, her guard was up and senses as alert as they would have been at a meeting of declared enemies. None of this, however, showed on the surface.

"Good councillors," she declared as she entered the chamber that had once been her father's, "do me the service of your knowledge that I may govern with wisdom." It was one of the traditional greetings. She said it with every appearance of sincerity.

As she seated herself, the councillors answered her just as warmly. They could not say enough about the great things they had heard about her trip to Talay. "A triumph!" Sigh Saden declared in his nasally, aristocratic Acacian.

"A voyage of miracles!" Balneaves of the Sharratt family pronounced. In his subdued way, even Sire Dagon seemed impressed. He should be, Corinn thought, impressed and enriched because of it, and more than a little discomfited, too. On the surface they were all praise; beneath, they had to be wondering how she had managed these miracles. They must be stewing over what other powers she might have, a reaction she had intended all along.

Deciding to let them worry a little longer, she indicated that Rhrenna could call the meeting to order.

She did so by invoking the first five Akaran kings, calling on their spirits to infuse the gathering with wisdom. After that grandiose opening, Rhrenna directed their conversation to mundane matters, as Corinn had instructed. Records and accounts, mining production estimates, and even an assessment of the Vumu Archipelago's potential as a source of timber: on such things they passed a long, boring hour.

Turning to military matters, General Andeson, the commander of the Acacian army, admitted that there had been a drop in the overall troop numbers but said it was for the best. He put forth the opinion that the military would better serve as a slightly smaller force than by recruiting less worthy new soldiers. Without a foe to fight, he said, it was dangerous to have too many armed men and women milling about.

"What about security?" asked Talinbeck, a bone-thin engineer with bushy, recalcitrant eyebrows. "My managers swear there's something afoot among the workers-nothing they can put their finger on, but something."

Andeson rubbed his thumb over his close-cropped black beard. "Show me a foe and I'll act, but I can't defend against something nobody can put a finger on."

"I've heard rumors of discontent before," Corinn said. "Are there signs that the dissenters are organizing?"

"No, Your Majesty," Balneaves said. "It's just the low-level grumbling of the masses. That's nothing new. When the mist flowed freely, it was nothing but a murmur. It's still little more than that, but the commoners want to be sedated! That's why they drink. That's why they smoke whatever leaves will blur the world for them. That's why they fornicate and breed and brawl drunkenly in taverns." He could barely keep the scorn off his jowly face. "I say get that new wine to them sooner rather than later. We'll all be happier for it."

Sire Dagon cleared his throat, puckered his lips, and held the room a moment. "The league is ready to distribute when you are, Your Majesty."

Corinn knew they all wanted the empire sloshing in the stuff. Such a course was likely for the best and would commence soon. She told herself that she wasn't delaying. She just needed to know the time was right. "I know," she answered. "And in my time I will allow it."

Baddel, the only Talayan on the Council, went into raptures again. "Your trip was such a success," he said, "that I wonder if you plan another. Talay is big enough. You touched the coastal area, but in the interior-" He stopped, pursing his full lips as if he had not considered that before. His machinations were obvious, but Corinn almost liked him despite it. "Vast, dry mile upon mile. Another hundred wells between Umae and Halaly would do such good. Think what it would mean for the Halaly to have their lake back at full level!"