When he stepped out of the punt onto one of the Chantry’s docks, two dozen pairs of eyes turned to him, scandalized. Some he recognized from Vi’s training sessions; others were more hostile. A Sister was lecturing a class of teens on the workings of the punts. Others were doing maintenance magic on the little bay itself, reworking the rain shield overhead. He ignored them and strode toward the double doors that led inside.

A white robed woman stepped forward, “Sir, no men are allowed here.”

He walked past her.

Before he could touch the double doors, magic bonds latched onto him arm and leg. “Please, sir, we don’t wish to harm you—”

Kylar shrugged the bonds off as easily as he might shoo a fly. He turned and looked at the faces of the two Sisters tasked with guarding the door. They were stunned. One of them was readying a lash of magic.

“Don’t,” Kylar said, staring her in the eye. As he held her gaze, something in his eyes turned her resolve to water. The weaves slipped away. He threw the doors open.

Vi was in a panic upstairs. Good.

Kylar walked straight down a long hall to a set of huge double doors three times a man’s height. Doors along the length of the hall opened and Kylar heard cries of alarm. The smaller door inset in the double doors slammed shut by magic and a young maja yelped. The scraping of metal on wood told him that the double doors had been barred. Kylar didn’t slow; he didn’t turn to the right or to the left. He gathered power to his hands.

~I’ve seen stupider things, but it’s been centuries.~

The voice was the buzzing of a gnat. There was something beautiful in this simplicity. Someone had stolen Kylar’s birthright. He was getting it back. This door was in his way.

Kylar’s open hands shot into the doors. They bowed and then crashed open. One half of the timber that had barred the door shot across the floor toward dozens of tables. Perhaps two hundred magae were seated in the great hall, enjoying lunch. The splintered timber skimmed down one aisle at great speed, shooting between a Sister’s legs and finally crashing against the first step of a great curving staircase.

As Kylar stepped through in a shower of kindling, the other great door sagged on its remaining hinge. Every eye turned to him.

Sisters began standing all around the room and shields blossomed everywhere, but the first woman on her feet was Sister Ariel. She moved faster than Kylar had ever seen her move, coming straight at him. “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted.

“Where’s the Speaker? She’s stolen from me,” Kylar said.

“You will go no further!” Sister Ariel shouted. She was purple.

“Stop me,” Kylar said. He could see that his smirk infuriated her.

Faster than he thought possible, she did. Giant chains of magic lashed his arms to his body, clamped his legs together. Magae around her openly gaped at her sheer power.

~You deserved that. Take it, apologize, and come back later.~

Kylar had had enough of taking it, apologizing, and coming back when it was convenient for someone else. He was sick of being trapped. He felt something mighty rising within him.

Fear flickered over Sister Ariel’s face at whatever she saw. Kylar sucked in a great breath and flexed, tensing every muscle in his body, physical and magical. He felt suddenly gigantic, his body a tiny vessel for a giant soul. As he strained, a groan deeper than Kylar’s voice came from his lips.

His chains shattered, blew apart with a magical concussion that swept through the room. The tables didn’t move, the air didn’t stir, but everything magical was flattened. Every nimbus in the room winked out. Only a few held for an instant before popping and blowing away.

A dozen of the standing magae simply folded and dropped to sit on their benches or the floor. No one else moved, not even Sister Ariel. “What are you?” she whispered. The question was mirrored in every eye.

“Out of my way,” Kylar said. He strode forward. They got out of his way.

76

Istariel Wyant eyed the Alitaeran ambassador’s untouched ootai. Marcus Guerin was bordering on fifty, bald with a fringe of blond hair, a small paunch, no bottom, and a restless intelligence in his blue eyes.

“There are some troubling rumors we’ve been hearing that I think we need to discuss,” Ambassador Guerin said.

Istariel took the opportunity of taking a sip of ootai to cover her sudden rage. Someone had leaked this to the Alitaerans? If he’d learned about Vi’s practices, that was one thing, but Istariel had only told three Sisters about her plan to withdraw from the Accords. If he knew about that, it was treason. She simply arched an eyebrow.

“What do you know about this ‘High King’?” he asked.

Oh, those rumors. Thank the Seraph. “Little,” she said. There was a twinkle in his eye that made her wonder if he had done that on purpose. Bastard. “What we’ve heard has only told us that you ought to know more than we do. He’s Alitaeran, or at least raised in your glorious country. His name is Moburu Ander, though he claims Ursuul blood. We know he’s half Lodricari, he led a company of lancers, and he’s found a position of some importance among the savages of the Freeze.” She knew more, but there was no point telling Ambassador Guerin.

“He’s the adopted son of Aurelius Ander, of a once-powerful family that has fallen far in the last two generations. Moburu was adopted at fifteen, before that, we can’t find any record or recollection of him anywhere, so we give some credence to his claim of Ursuul patrimony.”

“I doubt that an absence of records was enough to make you believe he’s an Ursuul,” Istariel said.

The ambassador stroked his moustache. “The captain is both intelligent and charismatic. Nothing was ever found to link him to the scandals and disappearances that seem to swirl in his wake. Last autumn, the king’s sister bore a daughter, Yva Lucrece Corazhi. The child and her wet nurse disappeared. At the same time, Moburu led his company—all of them—to a place called Pavvil’s Grove, where they fought beside the Khalidorans. There are wild tales surrounding that, but most of Moburu’s company escaped and headed north.”

“You believe he kidnapped the child?”

“What I believe has no relevance. Some very powerful people in Skon insist that he did not. They are having a harder time explaining why he has taken an entire company out of our country without leave, though some whisper it’s a secret mission for the king. There are generals who don’t wish to appear fools who have not discouraged such whispers. There are even those who claim that Moburu’s company itself is trying to recover Yva Lucrece.”

“It appears to me that this man must be declared a traitor,” Istariel said. “Otherwise, if he joins Khalidor again, this time to attack us, Alitaera will be making war on the Chantry.”

The slight wince that passed the ambassador’s face told Istariel she had voiced an argument he had presented to his superiors himself. “Our response to Captain Ander will be determined soon, and I promise you will be among the first to know.” Ambassador Guerin’s face looked like he was chewing lemons. “Now speaking of sharing intelligence,” he said, “you never did turn over that intelligence you told us about a few months ago,” he said. “But let’s return to that in a moment. First, we were hoping this house of learning might tell us some more about who this High King is supposed to be, and how one identifies him.”

Ariel leaned back in her chair. “Meaning you won’t move against Moburu until you know if he’s the real thing.”

“Meaning it is wise to know all one can about one’s enemies—and friends.”

Istariel took another slow sip of ootai, considering. “The High King is a legend mostly confined to the rural areas of Khalidor, Lodricar, Cenaria, and Ceura. His coming is not spoken of by any of the prophets recognized by the Chantry. We keep track of prophecies spoken by those who have the perishingly rare Talent of prophecy. We think of that one as simply a hope kept alive in Lodricar and Khalidor as a longed-for end to oppression. In Cenaria and Ceura, it’s probably more a wish to be consequential, something Cenaria hasn’t been for centuries.”