“You are engaged to—”

“No,” she said, her voice soft but very clear. She lifted her gaze to his briefly, then dropped it again. The pink in her cheeks darkened. “I am not. So you may talk to me all you wish, if you wish.”

Dain felt confused. Thum had told him the betrothal was completely settled, but it seemed his friend was wrong. Dain realized that to keep asking questions would only embarrass her more, and he didn’t want to drive her away. “I am glad to talk to you,” he said with a smile, trying to ease her distress. “After all, you are the only one willing to talk to me.”

The faint crease between her brows cleared at once. She cast a swift glance around at the other people. “Aren’t they horrid?” she asked, bending closer to speak in a whisper. “So puffed up with their own importance. They’re snubbing you, because they do not approve of how the king has accepted you.” Dain grinned. “I’m used to disapproval.”

“They disapprove of me as well,” she confided, blushing again.  Dain was lost in fascination all over again. How could she blush like that? So lightly? So beautifully? He realized he knew almost nothing about maidens, but she seemed different from all the others. Not only was she beautiful, but kind, intelligent, and observant as well. Yet unlike the other females in the room, she was not surrounded by chattering friends. She seemed as alone as he was.  “Anyone who disapproves of you,” he said, “is a fool.” “Hush! Not so loud,” she protested, but her eyes shone with delight at his clumsy compliment. “You are kind to champion me, but—” Trumpets sounded a flourish, and the buzz of conversations faltered. The king approached the table with a tall, slender lady on his arm. Pheresa whispered to him that the king’s mistress was the Countess Lalieux, and that she was very powerful at court. Dain had already witnessed just how influential she was during the sword contest that afternoon.

“Why isn’t she the queen?” he whispered back.

Pheresa’s eyes widened in amazement. “Because she’s married to the Count Lalieux, silly.”

The chamberlain drifted over to them, his eyes grave with warning.  Pheresa pressed her fingers to her lips at once. “We must be quiet,” she murmured, but her brown eyes were smiling.

General quiet fell over the hall as the king walked through the crowd with a defiant expression on his face. His mistress looked regal and haughty, but Dain couldn’t stop staring, trying not to be shocked by what Pheresa had told him.  Clearly his upbringing was far too conservative for the Mandrian court. He had a feeling he was going to be shocked often.

Beside him, Pheresa stiffened at the sight of the next couple walking behind his majesty. Dain shifted his gaze their way and saw nothing remarkable about them.  The man was tall and handsome, his face lined with boredom and dissatisfaction.  A jeweled order hung at his throat, marking him as a marechal, the Mandrian term for general. To Dain’s critical eye, he no longer looked like the great warrior he must have once been to win such a high title. Like the king, he had softened in middle age. His body looked puffy beneath his costly raiments. His lady wife walked gracefully at his side, holding her head high. She was pale-haired and curvaceous, with a jaw and nose similar to the king’s.  “My parents,” Pheresa murmured. Her hands clutched together, and Dain sensed her sudden strain and worry. “Look, she is angry at his majesty. Oh, no. I feared this.”

Unused to the courtier habit of gauging every moment by the mood of the monarch, Dain saw that the princess did indeed look annoyed. While the king seated his lady and took his own chair, Princess Dianthelle stuck her aristocratic nose in the air and veered away from the head table. Lindier turned to the king and made an apologetic little bow before following his wife. They sat at one of the lesser tables, throwing the entire order awry.

While the chamberlain flung up his hands and raced to deal with the problem, Dain looked at the king. His majesty’s face could have been carved from stone.  The countess patted his hand, and the king made a fist of it.

“Damne,” Pheresa whispered, looking pale. “What am I to do?”

“What’s amiss?” Dain asked her.

She looked away from her parents and frowned at him. Worry darkened her eyes.  “They were to sit here next to the king, and I was to sit with them. It was all arranged. And now...”

“What does it matter?” Dain asked her. “Sit here anyway.”

He wanted to say, “Sit here with me,” but he did not quite dare.

She paid him no heed, instead looking in distress from her parents to the king.

The other guests of the head table were finding their places now.

“Oh,” Pheresa said softly, knotting her slender white fingers together. “Oh.”

Dain did not understand why she was so upset, but he felt instantly protective.  “Let me help you,” he offered. “I will do anything you ask, if it will ease your distress.”

She cast him a look of gratitude, but before she could answer, the chamberlain appeared at her side. “My lady, her highness your mother requests that you join her.”

Pheresa drew in her breath audibly, but her spine stiffened. Dain saw a look of resolution cross her face. Lifting her chin, she said to the chamberlain, “Please convey my regrets to my mother. I am to be seated here, at the king’s invitation.”

A look of anticipation and delight glimmered in the chamberlain’s eyes before he bowed and walked away to deliver her message.

Pheresa glanced at Dain and pointed to an empty place on the bench. “Will you assist me, my lord?”

Dain did so, reveling in the brief touch of her hand. Her full skirts rustled with mystery. He found himself standing there like a fool, his thoughts awash in the very sight and fragrance of her.

“Am I allowed to sit by you?” he asked her shyly.

The strain in her face vanished, to be replaced by relief and gratitude.

“Please,” she said modestly.

As Dain settled himself into the last place at the table, Sir Terent bent unobtrusively to his ear.

“She’s intended for Prince Gavril,” he whispered. “Have a care. The king is said to want it so.”

Dain shot his protector a frown. “I know that,” he whispered back, impatient with this interference. “But the prince is not here. I am.” A line of servants laden with trays of additional meats and other delectables entered. Music began to play from an unseen corner. Conversations resumed, and the king bent his head to drink from the cup the countess offered him.  Pheresa’s parents glared at her, and she bent her fair head low in renewed distress. Dain realized she was trembling.

“Have something to eat,” he suggested.

She lifted her head again, blinking back tears that shimmered briefly in her eyes. “Yes,” she said as though to herself. “I must eat. I must not look concerned.”

“There’s been a quarrel. What of it?” Dain said without interest. “Let them work through it.”

“You don’t understand,” Pheresa said softly to him under the general noise. She reached out and took a morsel of bread, chewing as though eating dust. “I—Oh, it is too complicated to explain.”

“Then eat,” Dain said, finding the roasted meats very tasty.  Pheresa ate like a bird, sampling only small bits of food before pushing them away. Dain watched her from the corner of his eye, wishing he could help her with her distress, but knowing he could not offer. Some of the courtiers were staring at her, possibly even laughing at her.

With a frown, Dain felt a new surge of protectiveness. “If you look so unhappy, these people are going to think I offend you,” he said at last.  She looked around with a start. “What?”

Dain repeated his remark.

“No, you don’t offend me,” she said with a blink. “How could you?”

“I am an eld.”

“Oh.” She blushed and dropped her gaze so quickly he knew then that it had been on her mind. “Yes, but you do not seem strange,” she told him. “I—I mean, in the ways we are taught as children. You look human and—” “I am,” Dain said. “Partly.”

“Yes, of course.”

She was looking troubled and distracted again. Dain pushed a dish of tasty minscels her way.

“These are delicious,” he said. “Try one.”

She took a serving, but after a single bite, she pushed it away. Dain could barely stand the waste. He noticed that most of the courtiers were eating the same way, sampling and picking their way through this excellent feast. Clearly none of them had ever gone hungry. Dain, well aware of how sharply the pinch of hunger could hurt, took care to eat his fill and left nothing on his trencher.  A muffled sound caught his attention. He glanced up to see Princess Dianthelle on her feet, leaving the banquet hall with a grand sweep of her crimson skirts.  Lindier trailed after her, pretending indifference. Around them, the courtiers buzzed and craned their necks. The king, busy lipping a treat the countess was putting in his mouth, paid his departing relatives no attention.  But even Dain, new to the ways of court, understood that it was a grave insult to leave the hall without the king’s permission. Had she thrown down a glove, the princess could not have made her challenge more clear.  Pheresa looked stricken. She gripped her goblet so hard her knuckles turned white. “How foolish,” she muttered. “How unnecessary.” Dain leaned toward her. “What?”

“My mother’s temper is too strong. She has forced a quarrel, and it will only make things worse.” Pheresa flashed Dain a look that contained equal parts of distress and anger. “I cannot explain now. Please do not ask me.” He let her be, but he noticed that she sat straighter and made a better show of eating. It might have fooled those at the other tables who watched her with cruel, occasional smiles, but Dain knew she ate almost nothing. The servants who cleared her trencher knew it as well.

In the minds around him, Dain sensed no sympathy for her. Noncire’s thoughts were closed, his thoughts unreadable as he ate and drank with steady concentration. The Duc du Clune, however, was smirking openly, and Dain longed to strike him for his cruelty.

When the banquet finally ended, the sedate music became more lively. Jesters and acrobats tumbled a performance, and the king went off to circle the hall with his mistress on his arm, stopping here and there to chat with his eager, fawning courtiers.

Dain stood awkwardly to one side while servants cleared the tables away for dancing. Lady Pheresa drifted off, her face pale and set. Dain saw some of the other ladies laughing at her. Though one skipped forward to take hold of Pheresa’s arm and say something to her, the others all giggled. Pheresa smiled, but Dain could sense the hurt inside her.

Scowling, he started to go over to help her, but Clune blocked his path.  “Proved me wrong,” he announced in his gruff way. “Never expected you to take Odfrey’s title.”

Dain frowned at the man. “It is what Lord Odfrey wished.” “Hmpf. Well, make your place at court if you can. Off on the wrong foot already with that pledge. Don’t think you’ll last long among the painted vipers. Better to go to your hold and fend off raiders at the border instead of capering about here.”

“I think that would be best,” Dain agreed.

Clune scowled at him. “And if you think you can bring the uplands to a rebellion, know this: I’ll send every fighting man I have against you, as will all the lords of lower Mandria. What we’ve taken once, we keep.” Before Dain could reply, the duc walked away. Dain stared after him, wishing he’d left the old man to fend for himself in the woods that night.  Turning his head to speak to Sir Terent, Dain found himself confronted next by a thin, dark-faced man with a short, pointed beard and furtive eyes. Dressed in yellow and shades of brown, he seemed to appear out of nowhere and pressed closer to Dain than necessary.

“You’re the new favorite,” he said. “Allow me to present myself. I am the—” Growling, Sir Terent thrust him back. “Move out of Lord Dain’s way.” “No need to unleash your brute, young lord,” this stranger said, straightening his clothes with an offended air. “I only want to offer you superb bargains in court attire and accessories. Every well-dressed young lordling should be an object of—” “Are you a tailor?” Dain asked him in astonishment.

The man stopped his spiel and turned red in the face. “A tailor?” he sputtered in horror. “Certainly not. You have even less polish man I thought. When you acquire some, young lord, you may wish to come to me for my excellent assistance, but I will not be available.”

Sticking his nose in the air, he flounced off. Dain stared at him and shrugged.

“What was that creature?” he asked Sir Terent.

“A flea,” the protector said gruffly.

Feminine laughter caught Dain’s attention. He turned around to find Lady Pheresa smiling at him. Dain’s heart dipped in his chest. It was a moment before he could remember how to breathe.

“Forgive me for interrupting,” she said while Dain bowed low to her. “Will you escort me about the room?”

“Of course,” Dain said. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” she told him with another chuckle. “We are just going to circle about, the way others are doing. One must digest the feast before one dances.” “I do not dance,” Dain said in some alarm.

“Then tomorrow you must engage a dancing master and learn the latest steps.”

Smiling, she moved away, and Dain matched his stride to her slow pace.  She walked with elegant, graceful posture. Glancing at her slender neck and proud chin, Dain saw beyond her smiles and the too-bright look in her eyes to the profound unhappiness inside her. She was too beautiful to be miserable. Dain could not understand why she had no friends here ... except him. That, he had to admit, gave him pleasure.

“I hope your protector will not take my remarks amiss,” she said after a few moments of silence, “but it is not seemly for you, my lord, to converse with him in public. To issue orders, yes, but nothing further.”

“Why not?” Dain asked.

Her brows lifted. “You’re a lord. He is your servant.”

“He is my knight protector,” Dain corrected her. “He would give his life for me.”

“Of course. That is his sworn duty.” She glanced away, catching the eye of someone, and gave the woman a stiff nod. “But if you don’t want people to laugh at you and think you’re provincial, then you must follow protocol.” Wondering what other etiquette disasters he would create that evening, Dain sighed. “More rules.”

“Worry not. You’ll soon learn the ways of court. During my first weeks here, I thought I would die of mortification. I did everything wrong, and the courtiers love nothing more than to laugh at the mistakes of others.” Glancing across the sea of faces, hearing laughter and chatter rising in a din against the background of music, Dain was aware of occasional waves of contempt or curiosity aimed at him. Acceptance probably would not come, he reflected, no matter if he followed every complicated rule perfectly.  “Have I offended you?” Pheresa asked softly.

Startled from his thoughts, Dain blinked at her. “Nay, I was thinking of all that there is to learn.”

“Yes, a million things,” she said. Her eyes smiled, crinkling enchantingly at the corners. “For one, you should not hesitate to dismiss the procurers. There are many of them, all annoying little creatures of no importance and little use.”

“What is a procurer?” Dain asked.

“That man who approached you about a tailor. He is of insignificant rank, the younger son of a lord, who hangs about court because he is unwilling or unable to become a knight and go into some chevard’s service. Instead, he is paid by various tailors to procure business for them.”

“Ah. A peddler of wares.”

Pheresa laughed. “Not exactly. Well, perhaps, yes. There are many like him. It is a way of putting coin in their pockets, and sometimes they can be of service.  But find your own tailor and wine supplier in the town. You will pay less and do better.”

Dain shook his head. “I will need neither. It’s time I returned to Thirst and—” “But you cannot go.” Looking dismayed, Pheresa stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “You have only just come.”

Dain felt a shiver pass through him. “Do you want me to stay?” She dodged that question, however, by sweeping down her lashes. “The king will, I am sure. You cannot go yet. It is not seemly.”

“More rules of protocol?” he asked gently, while inside he felt a part of him glow. She wanted him to stay. She liked him. In his company her spirits unfurled like a flower in the sunlight, and she grew more animated, even more lovely. “If you say I must stay, then I will linger a few more days.” She laughed. “What odd remarks you do make! You will stay as long as the king wills it. That is your duty, and it should be your pleasure.” He bowed. “I am commanded by you, lady.”

Pleasure glowed in her eyes. She smiled at him, and the dimple appeared in her cheek, but before they could talk further, the music changed and someone came to ask her to dance.

Moving to the edge of the floor, Dain stood with other spectators and watched as an intricate reel was performed. To his eyes, no other maiden was as beautiful as Pheresa. No one had her grace or presence. He did not understand why she was not popular.

Unless it was because she did not smile enough. When she was happy, her whole face and being seemed alight. But when she looked serious, as she did now while she jigged and skipped, her face grew pale and solemn. Dain stared at her and thought about learning to stand on his head or to perform other ridiculous tricks if they would make her laugh.

Someone’s shoulder bumped him, and Dain turned his head to confront the one who jostled him. He found himself staring into the freckled, grinning face of Thum.  “Isn’t this grand?” Thum asked over the music. “Look yon! The king is going to dance with his lady.”

They watched a moment as his majesty performed the steps with the smiling countess, but Dain’s eyes soon strayed to Lady Pheresa. She stood alone now, watching the dance. Her partner had left her, and no one else said a word to her.

Thum’s elbow dug into his ribs. “Stop staring,” he said. “She’s not for you.”

“She’s unhappy,” Dain said, never taking his eyes away from her.  “Probably because Prince Gavril is not here to pay her court.” Thum shook his head. “On the morrow, he’ll be through with his vigil and back to lead the dancing. Folks say he’s excellent at it.”

Watching the play of expressions on Pheresa’s face, Dain didn’t answer. He wanted very much to help her, but as yet he didn’t know how.  “Dain!”

Startled, he blinked at his friend, who scowled back. “You’d better pay heed, my friend. She’s destined elsewhere.”

A plump maiden with raven-black curls and dark twinkling eyes swung around to smile at Thum. “Not if his highness doesn’t choose her,” she said breathlessly.  “Don’t you think Prince Gavril is handsome? He can choose anyone he wants for his bride. If he wanted her, wouldn’t he have asked for a betrothal by now? Oh, I say a prayer every night that his eye will alight on me, or my sister.” She giggled and blushed as she turned away.

Dain frowned. Now he understood why Pheresa was alone and unpopular. She’d been raised with the expectation that she would wed Prince Gavril, who’d both rejected and humiliated her. Although he’d long hated Gavril, Dain had never before considered him stupid. Not only was the lady beautiful beyond all compare, but she had courage as well. How else could she withstand the cruel jests and gossip at her expense? No one in the room was her equal.  And, he thought, she is not going to belong to Gavril.

Thum tugged at his sleeve. “No, Dain,” he said with renewed urgency. “No.”

But watching the lady of his dreams, Dain paid his friend no heed.  The meeting place was a dim, dank room in the auxiliary buildings flanking the ruined cathedral north of the palace. Having missed his supper for the investiture fast, Gavril found the walk tiring and long. His feet made little sound on the soft dirt as he took a shortcut across a meadow. Overhead, clouds scudded across a thin moon. He found the solitary darkness unsettling. Tiny sounds startled him: the rustling of animals in the meadow grass, the soft call of a night bird seeking its prey, the sudden fierce singing of insects.  Several times he stopped in his tracks, listening to the night wrapped around him, while his hand clutched his dagger and his breath came short and fast.  He was not afraid, of course. Gavril knew himself to be no coward. But it was one thing to plan a clandestine meeting in a forbidden area, and a far different thing to actually carry it out, without companions or a protector or guards. He was unused to being alone, and he did not like it. He found himself wishing for the silent competence of Sir Los at his back, then angrily shoved such weakness away. Sir Los would have prevented him from coming here to meet the priests of the Sebein cult. And besides, Sir Los was dead, having failed him the one time it really mattered.

Gavril scowled in the darkness and looked ahead at the dark shape of the cathedral outlined against the night sky. No light shone from its windows. He listened, but heard nothing to mark the presence of even a single individual.  Alarm crawled up his spine. Would the priest meet him as agreed? Or was he walking into a trap? He’d been told never to do something like this, never to venture forth on his own to meet individuals not approved by the palace, never to go out without at least his protector at his side. Moreover, as outcasts, the members of the Sebein cult were hardly law-abiding citizens. Practitioners of the dark arts forbidden since the reformation, they might enslave him or hold him as a hostage or do any number of things to him.

Dry-mouthed, he swallowed with difficulty before squaring his shoulders and pushing on. Tanengard lay foremost in his thoughts. He must learn to control the sword. Next to the urgency of that, the risk he’d taken in coming here hardly mattered. Besides, he told himself, it would hardly further the cause of the Sebeins to harm him.

In a few minutes, he reached the stone steps of the cathedral. Only here, close up, did its exposed rafters from the missing roof show. Rubble littered the ground. His feet crunched across broken glass from the shattered windows.  Although he had never been prey to wild imaginings, Gavril sensed something forlorn and eerie about the place that made him shiver.  Breathing hard, he clutched his Circle and muttered a prayer. He was one of the faithful; he could not be harmed here.

A shape stepped out from the shadows, making him start.  “So you have come,” the man said. Gavril had to draw in more than one breath to find his voice. “I have come,” he replied. “Alone?”

The priest’s caution annoyed Gavril. After all, he had given his word. “Yes, yes, of course I am alone,” he said pettishly. “It is exactly as we agreed.” “This way,” the man said, gesturing. He walked off, his figure blending into the shadows.

Gavril followed him, now and then stumbling over fallen blocks of stone or pieces of timber that had fallen from the abandoned cathedral. Cardinal Noncire had periodically urged the king to order this structure torn down, but King Verence had always refused.

“Let it stand as a reminder of what we no longer believe,” he would say. “Let it remind those who will not reform of what their fate can be.” I am not backsliding, Gavril told himself as he followed the Sebein into one of the buildings.

When the door to it was opened, light stabbed out briefly into the night. Gavril crossed the threshold, and another priest in dark robe and cowl hastily shut the door on his heels. Swallowing hard, Gavril glanced around at the poorly furnished room. Lit only by a single, wavering candle, it held a crudely made table and a collection of stools. The hearth lay cold on this summer night, its front heavily blackened from the past winter’s fires. A large brass Circle hung on one wall. Small niches beneath it held objects that Gavril swiftly turned his gaze from.

He felt compressed by an immense weight. He could barely breathe, and his heart hammered violently inside his chest. His conscience was like something alive, twisting and writhing inside him. He should not be here. He knew that, knew it to the very depths of his soul, but although he could have opened the door and fled back out into the night, he remained there and stared at the two cowled figures, now standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of him.  “How may we serve your highness?” one of them asked.  Gavril hesitated, then lifted his chin. “I wish instruction in some of the ancient arts.”

“So your message said.”

“Will you teach me?”

“Your highness is far too vague. What, specifically, do you wish to learn?