Dannelle di Caela stood also, though she did not seem to revel in it. She stared through me with those brilliant green eyes, and I hoped devoutly that she did not believe the rumors. In dismay, I realized I had forgotten her glove entirely and that the single foolish feather was my helmet's only adornment.

I remember the chant of an elven bard, the choiring women who heralded my approach to the place of honor on the raised platform. My brief but full enjoyment of the scarcely hidden contempt on the face of Gileandos, and the faint, surprising remorse I felt to see Alfric stand in my honor, his eyes dull, expressionless, and distracted, as though he labored under a strange and mortal disease.

I remember the ceremony itself. Remember kneeling as Bayard, Sir Robert, and my father stood before me, their large hands on the pommel of my sword, and the solemn words I must keep secret passed between us in whispers as the music swelled and deepened. Then the Vow of the Sword, the Crown, and the Rose-to defend, to adhere, and above all, to understand.

Then Bayard's hands pressed upon my shoulders and turned me to face those gathered in the hall, and my eyes passed over all of them.

Over Brandon, who stared toward the huge marble fireplace, unfocused and sad, as though he looked through the flames onto a distant, wronged country.

Over Ramiro, who stopped wrestling with a side of beef long enough to pay polite attention to what transpired on the platform in front of him.

Over Marigold, who mouthed something delightful and alluring and almost obscene when she caught my eye.

Over Dannelle, who turned away.

Then over Gileandos, distant and disdaining. Over Alfric, who looked up at me with a strange half-smile, then averted his eyes, staring disconsolately at the untouched food on his platter.

Bayard stepped down from the dais into the midst of my people, his big hands raised in solemn triumph. Flanking him, my father and Sir Robert marched to their seats, their years falling away with each measured step until, standing beside their chairs, softened and redeemed by the shifting firelight, you could squint and see them as they must have appeared a half century before in the pass at Chaktamir, the Nerakan army bearing down on their small but resolute band.

All eyes were on me now, all the guests facing me. I raised my borrowed sword, and like the older Knights had told me would happen, like none of the wise men-not even Gileandos – could ever explain, the blade of the sword shimmered with a thousand colors: through greens and yellows and reds into others I cannot name because I had never seen them until this night.

Through it all, the choir sang a ceremonial hymn as old as the Age of Light:

"Beyond the wild, impartial skies

Have you set your lodgings,

In cantonments of stars, where the sword aspires

In an arc of yearning, where we join in singing."

From the dark, color-spangled hall, a man's voice- Fernando's, I believe-joined in the chorus. Then Bayard took up the song, and Father, and the others.

"Grant to him a warrior's rest

Above our singing, above song itself.

May the ages of peace converge in a day;

May he dwell in the heart of Paladine.

"And set the last spark of his eyes

In a fixed and holy place,

Above words and the borrowed land too loved

As we recount the ages."

I tried to join in, but the words shifted in and out of my recollection. Instead of the images of the six ages of man, I remembered the scene at the heart of the stone: the Plainsmen, the pale hand, the knife at my brother's throat. The smell of old grasslands rose to meet me. That is the last thing I remember of the ceremonies.

It is only later I recall coming to, lying on the bed in my own quarters, my armor removed and arranged neatly on the table in front of me-no doubt the handiwork of young Raphael. There, surrounded by candles and silence, by my polished Solamnic trappings, I tried to sleep, and you would think it would be easy, having weathered a night and day of vigilance only to be assaulted hourly by spectral visitations.

You would think a lad would be too tired for thought.

And yet I lay wide-eyed until morning, and it was my brother and the Plainsmen who filled my dark imaginings.

Chapter IV

The servants had gathered at a distance outside my quarters. As I opened the window to let in the muffled light, I saw them down below in the courtyard, huddled together, murmuring, exchanging something.

It was later I found that Raphael had listened at my door for a good while, ear pressed against the wood, overhearing my claim of visions. Quite naturally, he had gone to his friends among the servants, bearing this new intelligence.

So the something exchanged was money. It seemed that a sizable wager had grown about the subject of my sanity. "Climbing the Cat Tower" was the servants' term for it, for those unsettling moments in family history when one di Caela or another would burst free of sanity and provoke castle gossip for the next generation or so.

The Cat Tower in question had to do with Sir Robert's Aunt Mariel, who had locked herself away in the tall southeast tower of Castle di Caela, holding everything at remove-responsibility, nourishment, hygiene, and as it turned out, the care of her pets.

She was stalked and eaten by her own cats after all of them had stayed a month together in the topmost room of the tower.

It was rumored in the servant quarters that the Lady Mariel's obvious madness was hereditary. That I was family by adoption made only little difference to the speculators, who, I understand, carried on a running wager as to which of us-Sir Robert, Bayard, Enid, Dannelle, or myself- would first stray from orbit.

To many of them that morning, it must have looked like a time to call in bets. I stood by the window as the milling and murmuring subsided, and looking down upon those assembled, I mustered all the solemnity of my newfound knighthood, crossed my eyes, stuck a finger in each side of my mouth, pulled my lips wide, and throttled my tongue at them.

I stepped back into my chambers, satisfied that behind and below me, more silver was no doubt flashing, more wagers being struck.

I stood on the battlements looking westward, the long shadows of the castle walls diminishing slowly as the sun rose behind me. Below, the farmlands of Solamnia shone green and gold.

There was noise and altercation somewhere in the courtyard. Apparently Sir Robert di Caela had chosen to discipline his niece Dannelle, who in return had chosen not to be disciplined. What had started as a mild disagreement, the nature of which I could not overhear, had risen in volume until it was ending in a series of elaborate southern curses involving poison and mothers and goblins and the entire Solamnic pantheon.

Where I had come from, family disputes generally ended in fisticuffs or breakage or glasses of Brithelm's lemonade. It had taken me a while to grow accustomed to the Solamnic bickering, though I had a talent for it myself.

For now, there was more serious business ahead of me. The image of Brithelm I had seen in the frieze, the knife-wielding hand at his throat, was a disturbing one. Indeed, the only good thing about such a vision was its plainness: The image of one's brother in mortal peril is hard to twist by interpreting into anything other than that one's brother is in mortal peril.

From as early as I could remember, Brithelm had a talent for rumbling into places where trouble had set up residence, yet he always managed to walk away without damages. Though the situation would collapse around him, he would be left standing, no more dazed and no more the worse for wear than when he had first found himself backed to the edge of disaster.