Rhrenna asked, "You saw Wren?"

"Yes. I wouldn't trust a whore without seeing for myself, of course. So I verified it with my own eyes. She did visit the midwife." To himself, he thought, If that girl lied, losing her fingers will be the least of her concerns.

Corinn said, "Wren was a brigand; it's natural she would seek out lowborn assistance. But it may be that Wren suffers some other illness. Your source may be mistaken about the details."

Rhrenna murmured agreement.

"Or it may be that your brother's bedmate has a pup in her." The words came out harsher than he intended, frustration beginning to heat him. "That's what I'd bet on. You don't suppose they just sleep in that bed, do you? Like brother and sister?" He wondered if he had gone too far. For some reason, his normal assurance seemed a flimsy thing when speaking with the queen. It was there, yes, but he always felt as if a breeze could blow it away at any moment. "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty. I don't mean to be coarse-"

"I don't care if you're coarse or not," Corinn said. "I care that you serve me well. That's yet to really be seen. You spoke to the whore, but what of her cousin? Or the midwife herself?"

"I didn't want to stir suspicion before bringing it to you. Best they think you're ignorant of the deceit, for the time being."

"The whore won't run to her cousin straightaway or warn Wren that some brute was asking after her?"

Delivegu frowned. Did she think him a brute? Brutal actions don't make a brute. He'd have to teach her that. "No, I don't think she will," he answered. "Believe me, I know this sort. She cares most about herself and her other nine fingers and other bits after that, as well. You may doubt me all you like, Your Majesty, but it won't change the facts. I simply wanted you to know. I want to be of use to you. I hope you know that."

The queen turned from the now red sun, exhaled, and leaned back against the railing. "You are as helpful to me in your way as Mena or Dariel or Rialus or any other adviser," she said.

The frankness of the statement and the flat manner in which she delivered it caught Delivegu off guard. He tried to respond with some wry quip, but nothing came to him. He wanted other things from her, things not so noble, but he had spoken with unusual honesty when he said he wanted to be of use. Perhaps she was reciprocating that.

"You know, Delivegu, rule is a burden. People believe it a privilege. A gift. A great luxury. None of them know a thing about it."

"I'm sure, Your Majesty, that none is more capable of carrying the burden than you. Tinhadin would have liked you as daughter."

That thought caused her to pause for a moment. She almost seemed amused by it, but whatever melancholy had hold of her now prevailed. "I get a grip on this over here," she continued, showing the area she meant with a tented hand, "only to learn that this over there has gone awry." She brought her other hand into play, and then wiped both away with a flick of her fingers. "I get a grip on that, and two new problems fall from the sky. I deal with those, and then five foul weeds sprout beneath my feet. Why will it never hold still for a moment?"

"That time will come," Rhrenna said, her face tight with concern. She touched the queen on the arm in a manner that suggested it was time for them to go.

She's not happy sharing the queen's confidence with me, Delivegu thought. Get used to it, girl. "It's peace you crave?" he asked.

"We're at peace now, and still nothing is peaceful."

"Your Majesty," Delivegu said, again surprised to find himself speaking honestly, "you set yourself too great a task if you wish to make the entire world peaceful. It has never been that way-or not since the Giver abandoned us. Perhaps chaos is the natural order, to be embraced. Tranquillity might not make you as happy as you imagine. It might seem a bit like death."

"What about bringing peace to my own family, then? That should not be too much for a queen to manage. What, you think we are at peace? Why-because I smile and say I love my siblings and they do the same?"

"Don't you?"

"Of course I do. Only they know me-" She cut her line of thinking with a sharp tick of her head to one side. It must have pained her, for she touched a hand to her forehead as if suddenly struck with a headache. "I didn't ask to be the queen. All my girlhood it was Aliver who was going to rule. That was fine with me."

"What troubles you, your highness?" Delivegu asked. "Tell me and I will find a way to fix it."

"Delivegu, I have powers beyond what you can imagine. I don't boast when I say that. It's the truth. But that was true of Tinhadin, too-he whom you would have be my father. One day I'll explain to you why that's not the compliment you think it is." She fixed her eyes on him and for a moment seemed surprised at what she found. "Why am I talking to you like this? I'll tell you why: because I've just recently learned my sister has been snatched from the world by a dragon. She may live; she may be dead; she may fight the beast still. I don't know. Like anyone else I have to wait to learn of her fate. I want her here with me now. I want Dariel here with me instead of on the other side of the world. I want both those things, yet it's I who sent them away. And I would do it again the moment they returned. You see? I cannot be a sister first and then the queen. It's the other way around. So you tell me that I may be aunt to my brother's child, but I know that I cannot be an aunt-not if the queen forbids it. Not if the queen decides a bastard born to a brigand girl from Candovia will hurt the Akaran name, maybe even threaten the heir. Do you understand me?"

He was not sure he understood all of it, but he believed he caught the relevant thrust. "If Wren's child will cause problems-"

"I will deal with Wren, and you may well have a part in it."

Delivegu nodded, most pious. "The very fact that you say it fills me with joy, with purpose. You tell me what to do and I will do it. Anything-"

"Do nothing right now," Corinn said. She blinked slowly, fatigue on her. "Nothing right now. The queen needs to think it through."

He watched her and Rhrenna as they ascended the staircase and moved out of view as the wall curved away. A short, sweet view it was. One day, he thought, I'll walk those steps beside you both. May that day come soon.

C HAPTER

Even though he lived every moment of it, Rialus managed to disbelieve the entire ordeal. How could he credit such madness? What in all his years of life would have prepared him for the shoving, blood-spattered, roaring chaos that erupted after Devoth beheaded Sire Neen? The Ishtat soldier beside him lost his arm at the shoulder. His scream was so horrific that Rialus felt like it came from his own mouth. The flailing man drenched Rialus in a spray of blood, which he slipped in as he tried to back away. There, on the floor, he was smeared across the stones, stepped on, and kicked. He swam through bodies and severed limbs and once found his fingers entangled in a leagueman's entrails. He had retched so hard and long he would happily have coughed up his internal organs to end it.

If all that was not bad enough, when he was yanked up off the floor it was an Auldek hand that gripped him; Auldek hands slapped sense into him; Auldek eyes probed his. As they dragged him from the chamber, he saw not one living Acacian. It was hard for him to remember what he saw, but he knew it had to have been a scene of hellish carnage.

When they left him alone, Rialus's thoughts flew away from the details of his present horror. He thought through the pain to recall Gurta. He recalled all the things that had been, that might have been, and that had slipped from his grasp. She had loved him. Really she had. She had said so time and again in her plain, lowborn Acacian. He had seen her love on her soft-featured face and felt it in her caresses and known the truth of it when her body welcomed him each evening-as well as during the morning, afternoon, sometimes in the wee hours of the night. He had planted a child in her. Imagine that! A part of him living within her. Rialus made immortal! A boy child to carry his name and build up his fortune, a child he alone could educate about the world and shape in his image. Better than that, he could shape him in the image of what Rialus dreamed he might have been.