"I find it odd," she said, "that you have not reported anything to me about this young captain, Rufus Scipio."

Fidelias grunted. "I've reported to you. Young commander, natural talent. He led the Legion through something that should have killed them to a man, and they wouldn't hear of having him replaced with a more experienced commander, after. He's fought a campaign against the Canim that should go into the history books."

Lady Aquitaine lifted an eyebrow. "He's held on to a single city while taking back less than fifty miles of territory from the invaders. That hardly sounds impressive."

"Because you don't know who and what he's done it against," Fidelias said.

"The War Committee does not seem impressed with it."

"The War Committee hasn't stood to battle against an army of fifty thousand Canim with nothing but a half-trained Legion with an understrength corps of Knights to support it."

Lady Aquitaine bared her teeth in a sudden, brilliant smile. "So military. That suits you, I think." Her eyes roamed over him. "And the exercise has agreed with you, it would seem."

Fidelias kept himself from reacting at all, either to her words, to the sudden low fires in her eyes, or to the subtle wave of earthcrafting that swept out from her, sending a quiet, insistent tug of desire flickering through his body. "My lady, please. Your point?"

"My point," she said quietly, every word growing sharper, "is that rumor is running rampant that this young Scipio commands Legions as if born to it. Rumor has it that he has shown evidence of subtle and potent furycrafting, to such a degree that he withstood attacks that all but annihilated the officers of an entire Legion. Rumor has it that he bears a startling resemblance to Gaius Septimus in his youth."

Fidelias rolled one shoulder as his neck cramped again. "Young men in Legion armor, in Legion haircuts, all look pretty much the same, my lady. He's tall, yes. So are a lot of young men. He's a natural talent at command. But he's got less furycraft than I do. He barely passed his basic crafting requirements for his first term in the Legions. You can look them up, in Riva's records."

Lady Aquitaine folded her hands and frowned at him. "I'll have to take a look at him myself, Fidelias. But frankly, he's too well positioned to ignore. He commands the loyalty of an entire Legion, after all-and a Legion that contains not one, but two sons of Antillus Raucus, both of whom possess their father's talents. And he's operated in complete loyalty to Gaius. I'm not prepared to entertain the notion of a bastard of the House of Gaius running loose with that kind of power to support him. Not now." She smiled, and it was a cold, cold thing. "We're almost there. Gaius will fall. I will not have some upstart playing havoc with my plans now."

Fidelias took a slow breath, keeping himself carefully under control. If Lady Aquitaine sensed the sudden turmoil of his emotions now, he was as good as dead. "A reasonable precaution," he said. "What would you have me dor"

"Remain where you are for now," she said, rising. She flicked a hand, idly, and the features of her face melted, changed, and rearranged themselves into a far plainer set of features that looked nothing like her. Her hair changed colors and took on streaks of grey, and her body slumped slightly, as though aging several years within a few seconds. She lifted a bundle of clothing she'd held in her lap, and looked precisely like any of a hundred washerwomen who worked for the Legion-but for the hard shine in her eyes. "And soon," she said, "when the time is right, my dear spy, I'll send you the word."

"To what?" Fidelias asked quietly.

She paused at the tent's flap and looked at him over her shoulder. "Why, to kill him, of course."

Then she was gone, vanishing into the rising bustle of the camp outside his tent.

Fidelias-Marcus-shut the tent flap again and saw that his hands were shaking. He returned to his cot and lay down upon it.

Kill the captain.

If he did not, he wouldn't survive it. Though they eagerly cultivated betrayal in others' retainers, the Aquitaines did not tolerate it among their own. Fidelias knew. He'd killed half a dozen of them himself, at Lady Aquitaines bidding. He'd turned against Gaius Sextus, his liege. He'd betrayed his fellow Cursors. He'd turned upon his own student, and he knew Amara would never forgive him. He'd done it all at her command, because he had believed that she and her husband were the least destructive choice for Alera's future.

That was before he'd met the captain, before the young man had, somehow, hauled survival and victory out of the ashes of chaos and despair-and personally risked his life to save Marcus's own along the way.

Now, Invidia Aquitaine commanded him once more.

Kill the captain.

Marcus ached to his bones with fatigue, but he lay staring up at the sloping canvas walls of his tent, utterly unable to sleep.

Chapter 3

"Captain," Valiar Marcus said. "They're ready for you."

Tavi rose and straightened the hem of his rich crimson tunic, beneath the armor, and made sure that his formal half cape draped properly. He'd never actually had occasion to wear his dress uniform before, and after two years of regular use, his battered armor looked rather shabby when framed by the splendid crimson fabric.

"Sword, sir," Marcus said. The old centurion's weathered face was sober, but Tavi thought he saw amusement in his eyes.

Tavi glanced down and sighed. Regulations called for a sword to hang straight along the seam of the trousers, but he'd taken his cue from Marcus and several other veterans, and belted his scabbard on at a slight angle. The change made a small difference in the ease of drawing a blade, and a smart soldier sought every advantage he could. Regulations, however, were regulations, and Tavi took a moment to resecure the weapon properly. Then he nodded to the First Spear and strode into the conference room.

The conference room had been built in the heavy stone command building back when the First Aleran had repulsed the initial Canim onslaught. The room, with its large stone sand table, and its classroom-style slateboards on the walls, had been intended to host the command staff of a pair of Legions-twice what had ever actually put the room to use. Now, though, the place was stuffy and close, and crowded with twoscore of the most powerful men and women in Alera.

Tavi recognized only a few of them by sight, though he could deduce most of the others from their colors and reputations. Gaius, of course, sat at the front of the room, on a small platform raised a few inches over the floor. He was flanked by a pair of Crown Guardsmen, and Sir Cyril, as the nominal host of the proceedings, sat beside him, his metalcrafted replacement leg gleaming in the light of the furylamps.

Around the room were several other notables of the Realm: High Lord and High Lady Placida were front and center in the first row, seated beside the elderly High Lord Cereus. Sir Miles, Captain of the Crown Legion, sat beside him, though Tavi had no idea why Miles's mouth was hanging open like that. After all, surely someone had told Miles about Tavi's role as Rufus Scipio. Toward the back of the room, leaning indolently against the wall, like a bored schoolboy, was a man that could only be High Lord Aquitaine. Several men whose body language declared them cronies of Aquitaine stood nearby him. On the other side of the room from Aquitaine was Countess Amara, standing in precisely the same posture, probably as a subtle mockery of the second-most-powerful man in the Realm-and certainly in a position where she would be able to watch everything the High Lord and his associates were doing. Senator Arnos, head of the War Committee, and a dozen aides and associates occupied the entire second row, and Tavi could feel the man's cold, calculating eyes lock onto him as he entered.