Old Staip, trembling and unsteady, stood to Taniane’s left as she took her position on the reviewing stand. Simthala Honginda and Catiriil were beside him. Puit Kjai was at her right, and Chomrik Hamadel next to him, both of them grandly helmeted. Before them, occupying the outer rim of the stand’s lower level, was an array of city guardsmen led by Chevkija Aim.

One by one the other members of the Presidium mounted the stand. Taniane greeted them as they appeared. A crowd was gathering below.

Puit Kjai leaned his head toward hers and said quietly, “Be on your guard, lady. I think your enemies may well choose this day to make trouble.”

“Have you any proof of that?”

“Whisperings, only.”

Taniane shrugged. “Whisperings!”

“Such whisperings very often carry truth, lady.”

She pointed into the distance, where she thought she saw a far-off cloud of gray dust rising over the highway. “In a little while Thu-Kimnibol will be here,” she said. “And my daughter, and an army of their loyal followers. No one’s going to dare to make trouble with a force like that heading this way.”

“Be on your guard all the same.”

“I’m always on my guard,” Taniane said, running her fingers uneasily over the smooth shining surface of Koshmar’s mask. She glanced around. “Husathirn Mueri isn’t here. He’s the only one. Why is that?”

“I think he’s likely to get very little joy from Thu-Kimnibol’s triumphant return.”

“He’s a prince of the Presidium, all the same. His place is here among us.” She turned and beckoned to Catiriil. “Your brother!” she called sharply. “Where is he?”

“He said he’d be going to his chapel first. But he’ll be here in time. I’m sure that he will.”

“He’d better be,” Taniane said.

Husathirn Mueri had risen early that day also. It had been a long night for him, fitful rest at best, and he was glad enough to leave his bed at dawn. His dreams, when he’d been able to sleep at all, had been oppressive ones: chanting hjjk warriors filing round and round him in the darkness and the Queen’s crushing bulk, monstrous and bloated and pale, hovering over him like a titanic weight slowly falling from the sky.

The early service was already under way at the chapel when he arrived. Tikharein Tourb was presiding, with Chhia Kreun beside him at the altar. Husathirn Mueri slipped into the seat at the rear that he usually occupied. Chevkija Aim, deep in his devotions, gave him a perfunctory nod. The others nearby took no notice. By now it was no extraordinary thing to have a prince of the city present in a chapel.

“This is the day of revelation,” the boy-priest was saying. “This is the day when the seals are broken and the book is opened, and the secrets are brought forth, and the depths give up their mystery. This is the day of the Queen; and She is our comfort and our joy.”

“She is our comfort and our joy, ” the congregation replied automatically, and Husathirn Mueri said it with them.

“She is the light and the way,” cried Tikharein Tourb, making hjjk-clicks as he spoke, and the congregation, clicking in response, echoed his words.

“She is the essence and the substance.”

“She is the essence and the substance.”

“She is the beginning and the end.”

“She is the beginning and the end.”

Chhia Kreun brought green boughs forward, and Tikharein Tourb held them aloft.

“This is the day, dear friends, when the will of the Queen is made known. This is the day when Her love will be made manifest upon us all. This is the day when the dragon devours the dark stars, and brightness is reborn. And She will be among us; and She is our comfort and our joy.”

“She is our comfort and our joy.”

“She is the light and the way—”

Husathirn Mueri responded with the others, dutifully repeating the phrases when he heard the cues; but the words were no more than empty formulas for him today. Perhaps they had never been more than that. This supposed religious conversion of his: he’d never fully understood it himself. Somehow he’d tricked himself into thinking he felt a glimmer of something greater than himself, something he could lose himself in. That must have been it. In any event his mind and soul were elsewhere now. He could think of nothing but Thu-Kimnibol, riding in glory through the farmlands north of the city, coming back from the war with some sort of victory to proclaim.

Victory? What had he done? Beaten the hjjks? Slain the Queen? None of that seemed remotely possible. Yet the word had preceded him: the war was over, peace had been achieved. By the heroic efforts of Thu-Kimnibol and Nialli Apuilana, and so forth and so forth—

That galled Husathirn Mueri more than anything: that by some strange trick of fate the unattainable Nialli Apuilana had been taken in mating by her own father’s half-brother, the man Husathirn Mueri most loathed in all of Dawinno. He choked on the thought of that mating. Her sleek silken body against his huge coarse bulk. His hands on her thighs, her breasts. Their sensing-organs touching in the most intimate of—

No. Stop it.

He ordered himself not to think about them. All he was achieving was self-torture and despair. He fought to regain his inner equilibrium. But however he struggled to calm himself, no calmness would come. His mind was aswirl. Bad enough to have given herself to the hjjk ambassador, but then to go from Kundalimon to Thu-Kimnibol — ! It was unthinkable. It was monstrous. That great lumbering vimbor. And her own kinsman, too.

Husathirn Mueri closed his eyes and tried to let thoughts of the Queen, the all-loving benevolent Queen, drive these tormenting visions of Nialli and Thu-Kimnibol from his mind. But there was no way he could pay attention to what the boy-priest was saying. Only empty noise, that was what it seemed like now. Hollow mumblings, weird magical nonsense.

Perhaps I never believed any of this, he thought. Love the Queen? What kind of madness is that, anyway?

What if I’ve been coming here only out of some sort of feeling of guilt? An expiation, perhaps, for what I did to Kundalimon?

The thought startled him. Could it be? He began to tremble.

Then Chevkija Aim leaned over and murmured, “Tikharein Tourb wants you to stay after the service.”

Husathirn Mueri blinked and looked up. “What for?”

The guard-captain offered only a shrug. “He didn’t say. But we aren’t supposed to take part in the twining when the service ends. We’re just supposed to wait.”

“She is the essence and the substance,” Tikharein Tourb called out.

“ She is the essence and the substance,” the congregation replied. Husathirn Mueri forced himself to bellow forth the response with them.

He felt a little calmer now. Chevkija Aim, breaking in on him like that, had managed to pull him back from his feverish brooding. But he fidgeted as the string of litanies went on and on. He was due at the welcoming ceremony in a little while: the whole Presidium had to be there to hail the returning heroes. Much as he loathed the idea, he didn’t dare to stay away, or it would seem he was too embittered to attend, and that would create trouble for him. But if Tikharein Tourb didn’t hurry it up—

At last, though, the service was over, ending with the usual mass twinings. The faithful, when the intensity of their communions had lifted from them, filed silently out of the hall.

Husathirn Mueri and Chevkija Aim rose and went to the altar, where Tikharein Tourb waited for them.

The boy’s eyes seemed more fiery even than usual today. His fur bristled with tension.

“It is just as I said in the service,” he told Husathirn Mueri. “This is the day of the breaking of the seals. This is the day of the Queen. And you two are to be Her instruments.”

Husathirn Mueri frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“The prince Thu-Kimnibol has brought shame upon the Queen. His life is already forfeit for the slaying of the holy Kundalimon; but now also he has intruded on the sanctity of the Nest of Nests and attempted to impose his will on Hers. For these and many other misdeeds the Queen has pronounced sentence of death on him, which you will carry out this day, Husathirn Mueri.”