Thomas arched an eyebrow. He had the perfect look and demeanor for a spy. Nondescript hair. Vacant gray eyes. Voice, expressionless. Robert did not doubt that this man's role as Lord Lester's liaison to the palace had involved far more than the tasks of a simple courier.

"I have a wheel that needs setting on a cart," said Daria's husband. "Could you lend a hand?"

Robert nodded, gave the stallion a slap on the rump as a caution for the recent kick, and exited the stall to the sound of a powerful hoof thudding against the back wall.

Thomas led the way down the stable's central aisle to the far end where the scent of horse manure faded under the pungency of pork grease. A cart with a light body of splintered and worn wood sat tilted at an irregular angle, the left axle, its spindle already greased, propped up on a dusty barrel. A clutter of nails, tools, and semibroken objects graced the nearby shadows, but a st.u.r.dy, twelve-spoked wheel with a brand new frame rested against the end stall.

Robert headed for the wheel.

The other man's hand stopped him, taking his wrist, then placing a thin sc.r.a.p of paper into his palm. "From His Lordship," said Thomas. The man's face was buried in shadow.

Robert flipped over the sc.r.a.p and moved his hand into a thin stream of light by a crack in the stable wall.

His Majesty's guards have vacated the city.

A fierce, hard knot tied itself in Robert's gut. Time then. Tonight.

"I haven't heard anything about Her Highness wishing to renew her expedition." Thomas reached for the propped wheel and began to roll it to the cart. Was that it then? No discussion of what the man knew or didn't know.

"Neither have I," Robert replied, too fiercely.

"You're planning on heading out alone then?"

Ah. So there was to be a discussion. Robert set his grip on the side of the wheel. He did not bother to reply-did not trust himself.

"And you haven't yet told Her Highness." Thomas secured his own grip. "Do you think that is wise?"

"She doesn't need me." Robert strained to lift the wheel.

"That's disputable." The other side lifted as well.

It tilted wildly. "She seems happy here," Robert lied as he fought to regain balance. Happiness was too much to expect after what she had been through, but she did seem to be returning to a semblance of a normal life. Based on the frenzied talk he had heard about her visits to the village, which seemed to have grown longer and more frequent over the past weeks, she was gaining the same awe and respect she had garnered in Sterling. And Tyralt City.

The wheel steadied.

"She's found her mother and is building a relationship with her," Thomas said, guiding the large hub toward the inclined end of the axle. "That takes time."

The wheel had gone too far in the wrong direction. "I'm glad for her." Robert shifted his grip and pulled.

"My." Thomas tugged back. "Such enthusiasm."

How is it a man with no expression can master sarcasm? Robert's arms strained. "Either help me with this or lose the help!" he snapped.

Finally the wheel sc.r.a.ped into place. Thomas did not react to the sharp comment. Instead, he slid a thin metal ring over the end of the spindle and then slowly twisted the nut onto the threaded bolt. The silence was painful.

"She's safe here," Robert said at last, giving the one reason that surpa.s.sed all argument.

"I suppose." The other man straightened. For the first time, those gray eyes settled on Robert-clear, nothing vacant in them now. "As safe as any of us are in this kingdom."

The back of Robert's mind churned. Since when had Thomas become a voice of politics?

Though he was right. As Drew had been back in Sterling. None of them would truly be safe if Melony took the throne. But Robert could not shake the memory of the smoke, the dense clogging odor that had filled the air around the rising ashes of Aurelia's burning tent.

"Risking her life on an expedition won't save Tyralt," he said.

Thomas tested the wheel. It spun with a swift, smooth turn, the sanded grains of the new frame blurring together. "It seems to me she made that choice."

That had been before-before the smoke, before the scream in the forest that had ripped Robert apart and brought her back to him. He found himself staring into the clutter-filled shadows.

"She knew it was not safe to defy her father's wishes," Thomas continued.

"She doesn't care about being safe."

"Ah. Then it's you who wants her to stay here."

No, he definitely did not. But he could not protect her. Her stepfather could. "This is best."

"The end of the crown it is."

Robert's eyes widened at the foul language.

"She should finish the expedition," Thomas said. "You know it, and I know it. You've lived on the frontier, Robert. You know the divisions that have been building. From what I hear, there's talk the north does not even need a monarch. I can't believe you rode all the way back to the palace without at least some thought of saving this country."

Robert pulled away. This was not about politics. He headed toward the stalls.

"You should tell her how you feel." The voice stopped him. "Tell her what you want, Robert. If you don't, you'll regret it."

He closed his eyes, leaning up against the corner of the end stall. He could not tell her. What he wanted was selfish and unsafe and not the best thing for either her or Tyralt. He flexed his hand. The sc.r.a.p of paper must have fallen when he lifted the wheel, but the written words still burned in his head. The ashes of reality settled upon him.

There had been men, for well over a month, waiting in that town to kill her.

And there had been no word, as far as he knew, about any search parties or efforts on the part of the palace to find her. Even if the king believed rumors that she had run off on a romantic whim, surely, at the very least, he should have made an effort to investigate. Unless he, like her sister, now desired her death.

"Robert!" The female voice slammed into his thoughts so forcefully that for a moment, he thought she had risen up from his own imagination to scold him for accusing her father. But the figure speeding down the stable aisle in a green blur was no illusion. Though the fury on her face fit the image well enough.

"Yes?" Robert glanced behind him. There was no sign of Daria's husband.

"You told Lord Lester about the a.s.sa.s.sination plot and the attack in the forest," Aurelia accused.

Robert sighed. So she had found out. Even this he was not to be spared. "He already knew there was more to the plot than what your father had claimed to the public."

She froze in her tracks. Gone were the rags from her journey, in their place an elegant forest green gown, the gown of a lady. Clearly, she had not planned on this trip to the stables. "Do you think Daria told him what she knew?"

"Perhaps." Daria or Thomas. Robert shrugged.

Aurelia's head was shaking, and her hands were trembling.

It would not be fair to thrust his own guilt on Daria. "I made the choice to tell your stepfather about the attack in the forest," he admitted.

"Why?" Aurelia sank down onto a wooden crate, showing little regard for her gown's trailing hem. The green fabric folded itself into the dirt.

Robert quelled a sudden urge to draw closer. "He is your stepfather, Aurelia. He wanted to protect you, and he has taken a great risk housing both you and your mother here."

She let her head fall back against a stall door, her dark hair drifting past her shoulders. Soft. He longed to touch it. One last time. Her hair, the changeable contours of her face, her arms. The desire to hold her once-just once-without the aura of tragedy stalking them both, gripped his chest so fiercely he had to fight for breath.

"But it was my story to tell," she said. "Not yours."

"I think ..." Robert knew if he so much as stepped toward her, he might lose the will to let her go-that he would beg her to come with him, condemning her in the process. "I think your stepfather was trying to spare you that trauma." It took a lot for Robert to admit, but Daria and Thomas claimed that His Lordship would do anything to spare his wife, and by extension his stepdaughter, pain.

"He's trying to protect you," Robert said. "I certainly failed at that."

"What?" Her back suddenly arched.

"I'm sorry."

"You are what?"

"Sorry." His control began to slip. "I am sorry for what you went through in the forest, Aurelia." He could not help but tell her, though he knew it was his own selfish need for closure that propelled him to mention the dark memory.

She stood up. "You're sorry?" Her face flared alive, that vivid shift of line and color that he knew would chase him down no matter how far he fled. "You're sorry for being the only person on the expedition who didn't want to murder me? For keeping me alive? For bringing a spoiled, thankless princess across the Asyan on foot?! I'm the one who's sorry. Robert, I've been trying to thank you, but every time I see you, you seem so distant I-"

"I'm sorry."

"Ahh!" She stormed from the stables.

He stared after her. Unable to take in what had just happened. All he knew was that she had come in, angry with him for doing something wrong, and left, furious with him for apologizing. And his pulse raced with the contradiction.

"Yes," Thomas Solier's emotionless voice drifted out of the shadows. "I see how much she doesn't need you."

Chapter Eight.

THE PRICE OF DESTINY.

HE WAS SORRY! AURELIA RUSHED UP THE HILL toward the Fortress. It was her stepfather who should be sorry, drilling Robert about the danger to her life. She should have questioned Lord Lester further about the messenger from Transcontina. But His Lordship had been well into a bottle of heavy red wine, and-she might as well face it-when Robert's name had come up, she had leaped at the excuse to confront her expedition guide instead.

After all, he had buried himself in his work at the stables. She had scarcely seen him these past weeks. The argument, just now, had been ludicrous, but even more bizarre was the way it made her feel. Humming with the interaction. Her pulse rushed, and her lungs struggled for air within her corset. This dratted dress!

She filled her fists with the heavy fabric and tugged the long skirts above her ankles as she swept through the dirt field of her stepfather's courtyard. She should never have put on her mother's gown in the first place. But Aurelia had thought if she accepted the gift, it might somehow strengthen their relationship. Though no number of dresses would heal the cavity within her chest.

It was time, she thought, as she entered the Fortress and climbed the stairs. Time to ask the harder questions.

She tapped gently on the door, then entered the Blue Room. Her observations were now far sharper than they had been on her first visit. She saw not only the sky blue of the walls but the subtle shift from black to navy along the head of the swallow in the painting beside the window. And the way slate blended to midnight blue on the dramatic wing of the heron soaring in the opposing portrait. She noted the thin white crack along the arched neck of the cerulean flower vase and the blue-gray embroidery of a dolphin's fin among the indigo waves of a nearby tapestry.

Her mother was embroidering now. An emerald V along the throat of a mountain canary. For a moment Aurelia gazed down at the minute st.i.tching with awe. Four different shades of green had already gone into that single V-shaped element. She could never have borne such exact.i.tude.

Nervously, she seated herself on the chair at the left side of the window, across from her mother. Aurelia knew the continued silence upon her entrance was not rejection. After all, there were now two wicker chairs where before there had been only one. But she was about to break an unspoken rule. "Mother," she said softly. She always found it hard to speak in her regular voice in this room. "Why did you change your name?"

Lady Margaret looked up at the personal question, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight, then dropped her gaze once again to the embroidery. "I didn't want to be Marguerite anymore." The answer came out even softer than the question. "Marguerite was a name chosen for me. Margaret feels less ... destined."

Aurelia knew well the flaws of having one's life defined by birth, but her mother had not been born royal. "How were you destined?"

The needle froze. "I was Marguerite of Valshone."

And what did that explain? "I don't understand."

A strange, grim smile appeared on her mother's face. "Well, then, perhaps some good came from my marriage's end after all." Her marriage. To Aurelia's father. It was the first time her mother had broached the topic. The needle plunged back into the throat of the canary. "Have you never heard of the Right of Valshone?"

Aurelia racked her memory.

Her mother took another st.i.tch. "I see. Your education must have been controlled in this matter."

With ignorance. Yes, Aurelia's father had been very good at that type of control. "What is it, then-the Right of Valshone?"

"Tradition." Her mother began to st.i.tch more quickly. "Dating back to Tyralt's first real test in power. There was an attack to the southwest-"

"The attack of the Gisalts."

"Yes, well, your learning has not been too dismal then. It was the first and last time Tyralt was ever attacked on the southern coast. No one has tried since."

"Because the mountains are so treacherous."

"Because the people who live in the mountains are treacherous." Her mother looked up, then down, without slowing the rapid st.i.tches. "The Valshone are trained fighters. Their defense of the southwest border is key to Tyralt's ability to protect itself. At the time of the attack, the king of Tyralt realized this, and he and the Lord of Valshone made an agreement, an oral contract, which means even more to the people of the mountains than a written one. It stated that the heir of Tyralt, instead of wedding royalty from another kingdom, would marry within, a member of the Valshone." The needle paused, then lifted again very slowly. "Upon my birth, I was chosen for this Right."

Aurelia struggled to understand. Perhaps it was unfair to blame her father for her own ignorance. She had always been reluctant to study the region of her mother's birth. "But if the child of the Lord of Valshone is always chosen to marry the heir of Tyralt, wouldn't that mean my father should be your cousin?"

"No. Because the lordship of Valshone is not inherited, but earned."

Earned? Aurelia had heard of t.i.tles being given for great feats, but to do so from generation to generation? The idea was startling.

"My father earned his place," her mother continued. "He knew and admired the lord before him, but they were not related; and my father was not required to select his own child for the Right. It was his choice." Her thread had grown short, the loops smaller with each st.i.tch. "Of all the Valshone people, I was the only one to have a destiny selected for me." She paused. "I was taught that this was a great honor, and I believed it. I believed it when I married your father. And when I gave birth to you and James." The needle came to a sudden halt. "I think I believed it right up until your brother's death."

A slate-gray shroud covered her mother's face. What had it cost her to mention James? And what did it say about the change in her relationship with her daughter?

"And then you left," Aurelia whispered, "when you found out about Melony." She knew her mother would never broach the topic of the king's indiscretion herself.

Lady Margaret reached for the thread scissors on the window and fumbled, knocking them to the ground. "I cried first," she said, bending to pick them up. "And then I yelled, which served no purpose. Your father denied any responsibility for his actions."

Aurelia's stomach churned.

"I realized then that I wasn't safe." Her mother clipped the thread. "I knew your stepmother, Elise, not closely, but well enough. I knew if the king would not renounce her, that sooner or later, she would find a way to usurp me. There were rumors ... about her husband's death."