After two days of reorganizing, repairing, and rearming, the First Aleran, beaten down to seventeen combat-capable cohorts, almost looked like proper soldiers again. The ruins had been neatly cleared of debris and many of the trees that had grown up through it, and the engineers had been hard at work on buildings, repairing their walls and roofs where they could, and converting them to open space where they couldn't. Every hale legionare helped them, including Tavi himself, at least for part of the day, carrying away rubble and clearing ground. It was best to keep the men busy. It would improve morale and discourage thoughts of any rash adventures toward the town of Mastings, still filled with the foes who had mauled them so badly.

Tavi found himself commanding the Legions out of the building upon whose roof he had won the duel with Phrygiar Navaris. The rotting wooden interior had been cleared, leaving a soaring roof overhead, and he quickly fell into the routine of command-except, of course, for the missing faces who now lay in the earth.

On the fourth day after the duel, the First Lord arrived.

Gaius Sextus stalked into the command building completely unannounced and narrowed his eyes at Tavi.

"Out," he murmured.

Had the building been on fire, it would not have emptied more quickly.

Gaius idly flicked a hand at the door as the last of Tavi's staff left, and a breeze slammed it closed. He eyed Tavi for a long and silent moment.

Tavi lifted his chin-a gesture of attention, more than aggression, schooled his face to a mask of polite neutrality, and waited. The silence grew heavier, but Tavi didn't let it press in on him, and after a time, Gaius grunted.

"And I thought I had made a mess," he said, finally.

"Mess, sir?" Tavi asked. He deliberately avoided the honorific given to the First Lord by everyone in the Realm but his immediate family. Tavi was not, however, feeling quite so bold as to call the old man "grandfather."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Don't be obstreperous, Tavi," Gaius said. To Tavi's surprise, he sounded almost exactly like his Uncle Bernard sometimes had after one of Tavi's fits of ingenuity, back at Bernardholt.

"Magnus got through to you on his coin?" Tavi asked. "I assume he's taken on the role of watchdog on your behalf."

"Once he recovered from the shock," Gaius said. He walked past Tavi, looking around the room. "Who told you? Araris or your mother?"

"Araris," Tavi said quietly.

Gaius sighed. "Mmmm. Unfortunate."

"That I know?"

"The way you learned. That she kept it from everyone. That Araris consented to it." He shook his head. "Though who knows. It may have been for the best. Concealment may have protected you more thoroughly than my power could have. Though that's over now."

"Sir?"

"Surely you must realize, Octavian," Gaius said quietly, "that a great many people will not be happy about the appearance of an heir. They'll remove you."

"They'll try," Tavi said.

Gaius studied him intently for a moment and glanced around them. "You've no attendant furies. But you overcame Navaris. And there's a touch of…" He peered closely at Tavi. "Your talents?"

Tavi nodded quietly.

Gaius stepped forward, sudden tension in his shoulders. "I thought it might happen. What have you been able to do?"

"Internalized crafting," Tavi said. "Earth, metal, water, air."

Gaius arched an eyebrow. "But no manifestation? No discrete fury has come to your call?"

Tavi shook his head.

"It's encouraging, I suppose, and your talents may well keep developing, but… it isn't going to be enough to let you protect yourself now."

"I've done fairly well so far," Tavi said, stung.

Gaius grimaced. "Don't be a fool. You were an annoyance before, and one difficult to reach, at that. Now you're an objective-and no one is untouchable, Tavi. Your father wasn't." Gaius paused and coughed several times. It had a wheezing sound to it.

Tavi frowned and tilted his head. "Sir? Are you feeling all right? You look a little…" He nearly said "frail," but hurriedly replaced it with, "… pale."

"Am I all right?" Gaius asked in a mild voice. "Boy, I told you to stay here and manage Arnos. Instead, you get outmaneuvered by the fool, arrested, then proceed to escape, take up with pirates, assault the bloody Grey Tower, and carry off the most important prisoner in Alera."

"Sir," Tavi said. "I know it looks bad-"

Gaius kept going, ignoring him. "That campaign of chaos not being enough, you then return here, declare your identity to the entire world, challenge a senior Senator to the crowbegotten juris macto, and as if that was not enough, you strike a truce with the largest invading force ever to attack the Realm, and at least a Legion of armed rebels-criminals, boy-to boot!" His voice rose, stentorian, echoing from the stone walls of the enormous chamber. "You've set policy with no regard whatever for the future! You've broken-no, shattered Crown Law! Have you any idea what you've done?"

The suggestion of the First Lord's displeasure had sent men hurrying from the room-and his open wrath literally sent tremors through the stone floor and made the room's furylamps flare scarlet in reflection of his anger. Tavi knew that Citizens all around the Realm would have immediately bowed to one knee and averted their gazes in the face of Gaius's outrage. Prudence suggested that Tavi might want to follow the same course.

Instead, Tavi found himself squaring his shoulders, setting his jaw and, somewhat alarmingly, stepping forward to brace the First Lord directly, eye to eye.

"I know what I've done," Tavi said quietly. "I have followed your orders to the best of my ability. I protected innocent Alerans whom I would otherwise have been forced to murder. I made use of the best transport I had to retrieve a prisoner from the Tower-a prisoner to whom you and I both owe our lives, I might add, and who has been unjustly imprisoned for four years for the sake of appearances.

"Then I returned here, parlayed Varg into a summit with the Canim command, and used information they provided me to remove a murdering, treasonous slive from power and see something that almost looks like justice done. And after that, I negotiated to gain the Realm the single largest, best-trained, and most destructive allied force Alera has ever known." He paused a beat, then added, "Sir."

Gaius's expression of wrath darkened, then faltered. He opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it, eyes calculating, and asked, "Allied?"

"Yes, sir."

"Explain."

Tavi did, sharing his theory about the reason for Sari leading the exodus from the Canim homeland, explaining that he, and the Canim themselves, believed that the Vord were destroying their home, and their people were fighting for the very life of their race.

"I'm not sure we shouldn't let them fight," Gaius said after a moment. "The enemy of my enemy, is my friend, eh?"

"If the Vord are truly the threat I believe they are, I think I'd rather keep the enemies we know than trade them in for new ones."

"A point," Gaius murmured. "But Alera as a whole is hardly going to approve of a truce with the Canim."

"It isn't a truce," Tavi said. "They surrendered. They're prisoners."

Gaius's eyebrows lifted. "They had the city surrounded. They outnumber your local troops by more than five to one. And they surrendered. And while still in possession of a heavily fortified city and retaining their arms, they are your prisoners."

"Mine," Tavi said, "personally, in my capacity as the Princeps of Alera. They have given their parole, and I have accepted it." He offered Gaius a faint smile. "The Realm has known more elaborate fictions, sir."

Gaius's mouth twitched. "Mmmm. What did you offer them?" Gaius asked.