Laheran eyed them all levelly. "We will find Karl Cullinane, and we will kill him."

The warrior lives, indeed. Perhaps Laheran was younger than all previous guildmasters, but perhaps that wouldn't matter if Laheran killed Karl Cullinane.

He smiled at Guildmaster Yryn.

"Leave it all in my hands," he said.

PART ONE.

Holtun-Bieme.

CHAPTER 1.

It ain't over till it's overa"and maybe not then, either.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

Wearing only a faded pair of Home denim jeans, Jason Cullinane bent over the washbowl beneath the mirror, scrubbing gingerly at his face. The early morning water was even icier than it should have been.

As he dried his face on a fresh-smelling towela"royalty hath its privileges, it occurred to him for not the first timea"he felt at his chin. It was a bit stubbly, although he had shaved the day before. He tossed the towel aside and reached for the bone handle of the straight razor sitting on the sideboard, but as he eyed himself in the mottled mirror he decided that the faint stubbling made him look older. He let his fingers drop to his side.

A distant laugh sounded in his head.

*Take on a few responsibilities and your beard starts growing, eh?*

He didn't smile.

*Your father would have laughed at that.*

"Perhaps he would have." But he wasn't his father. He looked into the mirror. Through the mottled gla.s.sa"Empire gla.s.smaking wasn't even up to Home standards, and Home standards weren't high to begin witha"under a shock of dark brown hair, two dark brown eyes looked back at him. Just the other day, U'len had told him that he was looking more and more like the Emperor. In particular, there was something about his eyes, she said.

I can't see it, he thought. They were just brown. He shook his head as he stared at himself in the mirror. He couldn't see it at all. He wasn't the giant that Karl Cullinane had been; Jason's jaw didn't even seem to have the firm resolve that his father's had had; there wasn't that I-can-handle-anything-that-comes-along look.

He shrugged. Maybe he didn't look so different, but everything else did. Things seemed so changed since his return to Biemestren. His room on the third floor of the residence tower felt smaller. h.e.l.l, even the castle seemed to have shrunk in his absence, although he couldn't quite figure out how or where.

His fingers reached up to his neck, the familiar feel of the leather thong and the small crystal amulet comforting. It wasn't that it prevented him from being magically located; he didn't have to hide in Biemestren, and if trouble came looking for Jason here, it would have the House Guard to deal with. The comfort came from its familiarity. The leather and crystal hadn't changed.

*They're waiting for you. Hurry down.*

Give me a second.

He took a fresh soft cotton tunic from where Elarrah had laid it out on top of his bureau late the night before and pulled it over his head, then padded barefoot across the rug to where he'd left his boots by the door. He considered the rising scratch marks in the age-darkened oak of the door jamb, from the cl.u.s.ter of six or so that were about chest-high, to the one that was on the same level as his eye, and the two close together a bit above.

He turned about and worked his heels closer to the wall, then set his hand on top of his head, resting his fingers against the doorjamb, before turning about to see that there indeed was a difference; his fingers were a good half-inch above the previous high mark.

He reached down to his belt, drew his knife and marked the spot.

Jason at seventeen, although just barely. He drew himself up straighter.

*Let's try for at least eighteen. You had better move it: breakfast is being held for you, and you've got a workout with Tennetty in an hour.*

"A workout? Today?" He sat down and pulled his boots on. He was leaving for Home and Endell in a few days; if he wasn't good enough with pistol and swords by now, he surely wasn't going to be a lot better by then.

*Nonsense. You grow a little each day, Jason; you'd better learn a little each day.*

True enough. He was nowhere as good with a sword as his father had beena"

*a"and that wasn't good enough, at least once. Remember. You've got to outthink problems; you can't count on outfighting them. Even if you were as good as Karl was, which you aren't.*

Again, true enough.

He went downstairs.

Breakfast in the castle had been an informal, catch-as-catch-can thing in the old days, despite Mother's claim that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and U'len's insistence that he sit and eat a full meal instead of bolting down a sketchy breakfast. U'len tended to take what Mother said, as Father used to put it, like it came out of a burning bush.

Whatever the h.e.l.l that meant. Another question he'd never be able to ask his father.

But it wasn't the old days. Too much had changed since Jason's return to Biemestren with the news that Karl Cullinane was dead. Mother and Bren Adahan had tried to minimize things with ceremony, trying to hide in some sort of formal arrangement of their lives the fact that the core of it all was gone.

Dead.

The dining hall fell silent as Jason entered. He gave a brief bow to the two dozen people in the room, then quickly walked to the head of the table, seating himself in his chair as though he belonged there.

"Please, be seated, all," he said. Mother still wasn't down, but they could be comfortable while waiting.

Doria Perlstein was already sitting; she didn't take to court manners. From her chair halfway down the table, she smiled a good morning.

He returned her smile. Strange, though. He knew she was as old as Father and Mother, but when she'd shed her Hand persona, she'd also shed all of what the years had done to her body, but not quite all that they had done to her face: her eyes weren't those of a twentyish girl. They seemed much older.

"Morning, Jason," Tennetty said as she took her seat at his right. Turning her chair to let her single eye sweep the room, the skinny woman scanned the a.s.semblage with reflexive suspicion before deciding there wasn't anybody to kill, not quite yet; she relaxed into her chair.

With a "Good morning," a smile and the clack of heels striking the floor, Jason's sister Aeia stalked across the room and dropped lightly into her own chair by the foot of the table, rubbing at her sleepy eyes, then gathering her long hair behind her head and tying it into an improvised ponytail. She was dressed in a pair of tight leather trousers and a loose, ruffled blouse that was almost impossibly white.

"Going riding this morning?" he asked.

She nodded as she reached for a roll, then dipped it in a honey tub and took a huge bite. "I'm going to get all the riding in I can here." Back Home, what with teaching at the local school, Aeia had little time for riding, something she had grown to like.

Tell her she'd better watch the eating, Jason thought. I think she's starting to put on weight.

*No, you don't.*

Ellegon must have relayed the exchange; she chuckled and turned to Bren Adahan, who had taken his usual seat by the foot of the table, next to her. "My little brother seems to think I'm getting old and fat. You willing to disagree with the Heir?"

Bren Adahan nodded slowly. "On this matter, I am."

"Fair enough, Brena"but sit over here. We've got some stuff to talk about before the council." Jason beckoned to him, and waved at a seat next to his own.

The Holtish baron's thin mouth twitched in irritation, but then Bren Adahan studiously blanked his face for a moment before displaying an easy smile that looked genuine enough. He nodded briskly, then leaned over to whisper a few words to Jason's adopted sister before taking the seat Jason had indicated. He stroked idly at a small cut at the point of his square jaw. Adahan had cut off his beard a tenday before, and had taken to shaving twice a day.

Jason tried to conceal the fact that he didn't like Adahan. Maybe it was that Bren Adahan was more than ten years older than Jason, and carried his extra age as though it conferred both wisdom and respect.

*Not fair. He doesn't get enough time with Aeia as it is.*

I have to talk to him about some things. We might as well get it all settled during breakfast, Jason thought back, knowing that he was lying to himself. That was all true, but it wasn't the reason. Jason didn't like the way Bren looked at his sister, like he wanted toa"

*He does want to. Humans are like that. It's all perfectly natural, as Elarrah could have told you two nights ago. Your sister is more than ten years older than you are, and knows what she's doing. And she is going to let him, eventually, on her terms. So leave well enough alone.*

Jason reddened. Elarrah? The fact that the upstairs maid was sneaking into his bedroom at night was supposed to be secret. He didn't want it noised about.

*Relax; I'm reasonably discreet. But it's silly to leave her alone just because I'm around. I have been reading your mind, such as it is, since before you were born. The next time you want some privacy, just ask me to tune you out. Like your father used to.*

I don't want to talk about it.

There was a distant chuckle. He couldn't tell whether he heard it in his ears or his mind.

Bren Adahan reached out and touched Jason's arm. "Are you all right, Jason?"

"No." He shook his head to clear it. "I mean, yes. I'm fine; I was just talking to Ellegon."

Bren Adahan nodded, and looked down the table at the two empty chairs near the foot. One was Danagar's, who was freshly returned from his travels through Nyphien, trying to find out who was behind the Kernat slaughter. While Danagar had only negatives to report, his trip had been much longer and far more exacting than Karl Cullinane had planned for him; he looked to be shy about twenty pounds.

At Thomen Furnael's urging, Jason had installed Danagar in a room in the residence tower, with orders that he sleep latea"

*And fatten himself up.*

Although there was something strange about Thomen of late. Jason was tempted to ask Ellegon to peep him, but . . .

*But that's not right. Your father used to tell me not to peep family and friends, and I'm beginning to understand how right his instincts were, at least on that. Either brace Thomen and insist he discuss what's wrong with him, or wait until he brings it up.*

Jason nodded. That could be put off for a while; for now, they had a problem in the other conspicuously empty chair: Mother's.

Bren caught his stare. "It's getting late. You really should send for her."

Jason shook his head. "No. We'll start without her." He raised his voice. "U'len, you can start serving breakfast."

Half waddling, the fat woman brought the first tray out herself, setting it down between Jason and Bren Adahan before lifting a huge stack of oatcakes onto Jason's plate, following that with a fist-sized cube of ham.

He held back a smile. "I can't eat that much," he said.

She waved a finger at him. "Eat it you will, either for breakfast or as your dinner. You're leaving tomorrow, and I'm not going to have you going out and getting yourself killed with only the remembrance of road food on your mind. When you get your stupid head blown off, it's not going to be because you were too hungry to think straight. It's not going to be my fault," she said. She picked up the honey tub and poured the thick honey on his oatcakes as if she were pouring water on a fire.

"Just go away and leave me alone," he grumbled.

"Shut up and eat."

He loved the peevish old womana"she'd been watching out for him for as long as he could remembera"not that either of them would ever admit it out loud. U'len wouldn't like that.

"I leave when you start eating," she said, crossing her arms over her ma.s.sive bosom. "So eat."

He picked up his fork and set to work.

Everybody else followed his example; the room was filled with the familiar clatter of plates and tableware, and the sounds of low voices talking between mouthfuls.

I'm starting to get a bit concerned about Mother. Relay, please: everybody's down for breakfast except you.

*I don't want to. It's not fun being in her mind. . . . Oh, very well.* The mental voice fell silent.

What is it?

*I don't want to tell you.*

"What is it?"

Tennetty kicked back from the table and had a flintlock pistol halfway out of her holster before Doria laid a gentle hand on her free arm, stopping her.

Everybody was looking at him.

Jason shrugged a pro forma apology. "Sorry. I was talking to Ellegon." Please. Deep inside, he knew what the dragon was going to say.

*She's not in her room. She's in her workshop, bent over her bench, crying. Again. She won't answer me.*

He started to push himself away from the table, but noticed that, once again, all the eyes were on him.

There was a long silence until Bren Adahan turned to him. "Please forgive me; I should have mentioned that I spoke to your mother late last evening; she said that she was going to be involved in some sort of work last night, and would probably sleep through breakfast, or get up early and go to her workshop."

*He says, "That's the lie you should have told. Now attend to your responsibilities. We have an agreement on that score, Jason Cullinane."*

"So we do," he whispered.

*So keep it.*

"In that case," Jason Cullinane said, "everybody please be seated, and let us finish our meal."

Unembarra.s.sed, Tennetty seated her pistol firmly in its holster and herself in her chair, then picked up a bacon roll and began to eat as though nothing had happened.

Jason was grateful. He had to try to hold things together, but sometimes he wasn't sure that he could, even for the little things: they ate in silence, the hall empty of Karl Cullinane's booming voice.