“But it was this Muncel who betrayed him—”

Verence raised his hand and gave Dain a gentle but unyielding smile. “Do not defend him. We of Mandria have forsworn the old ways of magic, taking it out of the Church of the Circle. We live safer that way, and better.” Dain frowned, ignoring the latter remarks as he struggled to assimilate so much new information. His emotions were reeling. He wanted to turn Soleil around and go galloping back across the fields until he rode the wind itself. Were these legends true? They had to be, for Verence had known Tobeszijian. He had seen the ring.

Dain reached deep inside himself, seeking some scrap of memory that would prove to himself that he was in fact Tobeszijian’s son. He had no recollection of his mother, this Queen Nereisse who had died of poison. His earliest memories were of Thia, holding him after bad dreams woke him in the night. She had sung to him her nonsense words until the dreams of dancing, headless men and black mist flowing across the floor to get him were all banished from his mind. Nor, try as he might, did he remember his father. He had no memory of riding through a cathedral on a darsteed, and surely such things would have forever branded themselves in his mind had they actually happened to him.  Wistfully, he plucked at Soleil’s mane with his fingers and sighed.  The king reined up inside a clanyx grove that cast dense, cool shade. His blue and green eyes stared intently at Dain. “You are Tobeszijian’s son, of course.” Startled, Dain lifted his head and met the king’s stare. He sucked in a sharp breath, but he could not speak. The air—the very world—seemed to have frozen around him.

The king’s gaze went on boring into him as though it could see to his very soul.

“Yes, his son, without doubt... Faldain?”

Dain gulped. His heart was thudding. He wanted to believe it with all his being.

“I—I have been told so,” he managed to say.

“You sound unsure.”

In sudden shame, Dain dropped his gaze. “I am unsure, majesty.” “You are a young man of the right age. You appear mysteriously one day to Lord Odfrey from nowhere. You are three-quarters eld and one-quarter human, and you seek refuge in Mandria because your sister and foster family are all dead. Am I correct?”

Astonished that the king had remembered these details, no doubt reported to him by Lord Odfrey a year ago, Dain could only nod.

“You quickly exhibit abilities far above your apparent station in life. It is obvious from your face, hands, and stature that you are no serf, but instead a boy of the best breeding. You know the ways of the ancient religion, the forbidden ways. You are as unafraid of the Nonkind as any sorcerel from Nether who has been trained to go into battle. You come to my court, and you wear king’s glass set in the finest eldin silver. But you do not call it king’s glass. Nay, you use the Netheran term of bard crystal. But the true confirmation comes from the setting itself, which has the private rune of Tobeszijian’s family name stamped on it.”

Gasping in surprise, Dain reached inside his tunic and drew out his pendant. The bard crystal lay warm on his palm. Even in the shade of the grove, it seemed to catch the sunlight and glitter with inner fire. He could hear its faint song as he turned it over and squinted at the tiny markings on the setting. He hadn’t even recognized them as runes. They were not dwarf marks, which were what he knew.

“Faldain,” the king said sternly, “what was your sister’s name?”

“Thia,” Dain replied, his voice hoarse and unsteady.

Verence tipped back his head and closed his eyes, muttering something beneath his breath. When he returned his gaze to Dain it was as intense as before. “Dain and Thia,” he said. “Faldain and Thiatereika, the missing children of King Tobeszijian and Queen Nereisse. You are his image reborn, you know. I saw it the moment you walked into my audience hall that first night. You have not his height, but you walk like him. You carry yourself like him. As unpolished and unlettered as you were that night, you exhibited a presence no ordinary young man could. That test of the priests confirmed to me—no, I did not request it—but it confirmed to me that you were no apparition, shapeshifter, or false claimant.”

He paused and cleared his throat, while Dain went on staring at him, not daring to interrupt.

“I expected you to declare yourself in front of my court. You did not. Instead you gave me that ancient oath of alliance, which proves that beneath your shy facade lies a mind like a steel trap. Many that night thought you brazen, but I understood why you swore no fealty. A king cannot serve another king. Knowing that, I gave you lenience and took no offense.”

Dain swallowed hard. “Majesty,” he whispered, but Verence held up his hand for silence.

“Why do you think I whisked you away from court so quickly? To utilize your hunting skills? Nay, I have been watching you this month, watching you while I’ve kept you from the hands of Netheran exiles and others who will foment trouble.”