It was an unpredictable day, with an unseasonable warm breeze blowing. Everywhere in the City, people had exchanged heavy winter garb for lighter attire. Dense clouds scudded across the sky, broken by patches of brilliant blue.

I bought a dove from the vendors outside the temple, carrying it in a gilded cage. The Great Temple of Naamah was a modest place, a round marble building surrounded by gardens. Even in winter, it was green with cypresses and yew trees, filled with the cooing of sacred doves.

"My lady!" The acolyte at the door bowed low at the sight of Phedre. "We are honored."

Phedre was one of Naamah's Servants, too, and she has taken it to places farther and more terrible and wondrous, I think, than any adept of the Night Court might dream. It has been many years since Naamah called her to service, but if she did, I daresay Phedre would answer. But today was not that day. She merely looked calm and peaceful as we entered the temple. I showed the acolyte my dove and told him my desire, and he went to fetch the priest.

"So." Joscelin tilted his head, gazing at the statue of Naamah that stood beneath the oculus at the apex of the dome. "You were dedicated here?"

"Twice," Phedre agreed. They stood side by side, hands entwined. Naamah's arms were open as though to embrace the world. Her face was soft with compassion and desire, bathed in a shaft of sunlight from above. After a moment, a slow-moving bank of clouds passed overhead, dimming the light. Joscelin laughed softly and shook his head, and I thought about what he had said about being unwilling to lay love on the altar of faith.

"Prince Imriel."

I started at the priest's voice. He stood waiting, hands folded in the sleeves of his scarlet surplice, attended by a pair of acolytes carrying the implements of his office. I guessed him to be around Joscelin's age, although he had the sort of smooth, tranquil features that made it hard to tell. His hair was ash-brown and it fell straight and shining to his waist.

"My lord priest." I approached the altar and knelt, setting down the birdcage. "I come to make an offering."

"Why?"

The priest's eyes were a sooty grey, long-lashed and disconcerting in their openness. I rubbed my palms on my thighs. "Because I fear I may have transgressed unwittingly," I said slowly. "And I wish her grace upon me."

"Do you?" he asked steadily. "It may come at a price."

"I know." I glanced involuntarily at Joscelin. "Yes."

"Then let it be done." The priest took an aspergillum from one of his acolytes and dipped it in a basin of water, flicking me with droplets, then smeared chrism on my brow. "By Naamah's sacred river, be cleansed of all transgressions," he intoned. "By the touch of anointment, be blessed in Naamah's sight." He nodded at me. "Make your offering."

Kneeling, I opened the cage. The dove huddled at the bottom, round eyes wary. I cupped her in my hands, mindful of the fragile bones, the swift-beating heart. "Forgive me," I whispered to her. "I know how it feels."

When I stood and opened my hands, two things happened. The dove launched herself in frantic flight toward the oculus, and the cloud-bank overhead passed. An unexpected blaze of sunlight once more streamed down upon us, broken only by a wild flurry of beating wings as the dove winged its way free of the temple. I felt my heart soar and laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it.

"Naamah is pleased." The priest's grey eyes crinkled. "Are you?"

"Yes," I said simply.

"Good." He bowed to Phedre. "Well met, my lady."

She smiled at him. "Do you not remember me, Raphael Murain? Somehow, I'm not surprised to find you here."

The priest laughed. "I didn't think you'd remember me."

Something passed between them; a shared memory. Joscelin raised his brows and offered no comment. We took our leave of the temple and lingered for a moment in the gardens outside. I gazed at the roosting doves and tried to guess which one was mine, but they all looked more or less alike.

"I could never tell," Phedre said, guessing my thoughts.

"It's funny, isn't it?" I mused. "The vendors breed them in order to sell them to supplicants to set them free. And yet, if there were no temple, there would be no need for cages in the first place."

"True," Phedre agreed. "The will of the gods is strange."

I glanced at her. "Was he a patron?"

"Raphael?" She looked surprised and amused. "Oh, no. I was. He was an adept of Gentian House." She laughed at my expression. "Ah, love! It was a long time ago, and I'd need of counsel in the matter of a dream. Speaking of which, I think I've found somewhat that you and Alais might find of interest."

"Oh?" I said. "What?"

"A story about a bear."

When we returned to the townhouse, she showed me. It was in a text by the Tiberian historian Caledonius, who had served as a military tribune in Alba during the uprising of the Cruithne under the leadership of Cinhil Ru. I knew that story, of course. Cinhil Ru was the first Cruarch of Alba. He united the multitude of warring tribes and made a pact with the Dalriada. They defeated the Tiberian forces occupying Alba and drove them out, across the Straits, never to return. Drustan mab Necthana was descended from his line; and so, for that matter, were Sidonie and Alais.

This began earlier, though.

It was an account of entertainment gone badly awry. The Governor of Alba had staged public games to keep his men entertained, and bear-baiting was a common sport in those days. Caledonius wrote with enthusiasm of its bloody merits. In this instance, the bear was to be chained in the amphitheatre and pitted against a handful of captive Pictish rebels armed with short spears.

I read about how the bear was the size of three ordinary bears, how it tore the stake to which it was chained from the ground and slaughtered the Picts. How it clambered into the stands and slaughtered scores of spectators, and tore apart the Governor's box with its claws, then took the Governor by the scruff of the neck and shook him like a dog, nearly severing his head. It took Caledonius' men over an hour to slay it, though they shot it so full of arrows it bristled like a pin-cushion.

When it was done, they skinned it, and found a human body inside its pelt.

I shuddered. "Not a pretty tale."

"No," Phedre said thoughtfully. "The rest is all about Cinhil Ru and the uprising and there's naught in it that's not written elsewhere. Caledonius survived the battles and the retreat. He spent the rest of his days in a country villa outside Tiberium, eschewing war and politics. And to the end of his life, he had nightmares."

"About the bear?" I asked.

She nodded. "It's all I could find."

I debated whether or not to tell Alais the story. In the end, I decided not to. She'd already had one nightmare, and there was no need to feed her fancy with bloody tales. I thought about asking the ollamh about it, too. I daresay Firdha suspected-or mayhap she'd heard I'd been asking her honor guard about the Maghuin Dhonn-for she fixed me with a challenging stare at our next session, black eyes glittering.

"Did you have a question, Prince?" she asked.

I returned her gaze without blinking, until her knuckles whitened where she gripped her gilded oak branch. There were fault-lines. For all her lore, for all the hundreds upon hundreds of tales she knew, one unspoken truth could render so much a lie. I could say so, and humble her with it, earning her enmity in the bargain.

Or I could wait and ask Drustan mab Necthana, whose business it was to speak of such matters. There was no hurry. My wedding was months in the offing, and if the Cruarch truly wished for it to take place, he would deal honestly with me.

"No, Daughter of the Grove." I inclined my head, ceding the victory. "No question."

"Good," she said dryly.

For once, I felt wise.

Chapter Seven.

"NAME... OF... ElUa!"The feverish whisper of gossip surged through the crowd assembled in the Palace ballroom on the Longest Night: Sidonie de la Courcel, the Dauphine of Terre d'Ange, had usurped the costume of the Sun Prince.

I laughed aloud when I heard it. It was the last time in years, mayhap, that I would celebrate the Longest Night on D'Angeline soil, and I felt strangely lighthearted. Doubtless some of it was due to my own costume, for there was a certain freedom in being clad in rags-albeit rags of coarse, undyed silk-barefoot and unmasked, my hair unkempt and tangled. It was scandalous in its simplicity, and Favrielle herself had evinced a certain grim satisfaction with it.

But Sidonie had outdone me.

"Is it true?" Phedre asked Ysandre, her eyes alight with mirth.

"Oh, yes." The Queen laughed. "Don't you think it meet?"

"Why not?" Phedre raised a glass of cordial. "Joie!"

They drank; we all drank. The clear cordial burned a pleasant trail down my throat and made my skull expand. Ti-Philippe shook his head to clear it, and the absurdly unnecessary gilt-fringed parasol he held for Phedre bobbed dangerously.

I steadied his arm. "Careful, chevalier."

He gave me a lopsided grin. "Found an honest man yet?"

I held my silver lamp aloft. "Still searching."

"Be careful with that, love." Phedre kissed my cheek. Her gown was a shimmering column of crimson silk, draped with gold netting into which a thousand tiny mirrors were sewn, and she scintillated with every movement, casting myriad points of light around her. Opulence, indeed. It wasn't Favrielle's finest work, but it would serve.

"I will," I promised.

It was already hot and crowded in the ballroom, redolent with the aroma of fresh-cut evergreen boughs, beeswax, and a hundred competing perfumes. Soon the odor of roasted meats joined the fray as the Queen's kitchen staff began loading the massive table with all manner of savories. I decided to make a circuit of the room before I found myself swept into the merriment. I had my lamp and I wore the medallion I'd commissioned from the silversmith, my sole adornment. If anyone was going to react to either in a suspicious manner, it would likely be earlier than later. Or at least I was likely to note it earlier; wine and joie were flowing in abundance.

As it proved, the response revealed little.

My costume drew reactions aplenty; for its daring lack, not its accoutrements. I began to give up on my plan when Mavros nearly fell down laughing at the sight of me.

"Oh, Imri!" he gasped. "It's, it's..." He caught himself and gave his head a shake. "Well, it's quite fetching, in a unique way." His blue eyes gleamed behind his mask, an ornate affair of black leather with tall, spiraling horns. "Tell me, have you seen your sweet cousin?"

"Not yet," I said. "But I've heard."

"Look yonder." He slid one arm around my waist and pointed with his free hand.

I looked.

By tradition, the Sun Prince awoke the Winter Queen to youthful rebirth in the Midwinter Masque we enact every year on the Longest Night. It is an old ritual, with roots going back to before the coming of Blessed Elua, and there is a distant connection between the Sun Prince and the ruler of the land. Mostly that is all forgotten and it's only pageantry, nowadays. But Baudoin de Trevalion resurrected it as a symbolic gesture when he was plotting to usurp Ysandre's inheritance. I remembered how Sidonie asked me last year, when I came attired as a Skaldic deity of light, if I thought to play the Sun Prince. In answer, I'd offered her my oath of loyalty.

She must have remembered, too. And she was using the costume to serve notice to the peers of the realm that she had no intention of being supplanted as the heir to Terre d'Ange.

Gold; cloth-of-gold. Her gown was gold, her shoes were gilded. The half-mask that hid her upper face was gold, and the sun's rays burst outward gloriously from it. Lest anyone should mistake the symbolism, she carried a gilded spear in her right hand.

Sidonie's head turned as though I'd called her name. I raised my lamp in salute. I could see her lips move in a smile beneath the half-mask, and her spear dipped briefly in reply.

"Well, well," Mavros murmured in my ear.

"Oh, hush." I shrugged him off me. "Is Roshana here?"

"No. There's a Kusheline fete. Most of the family in the City is there." He read my expression. "I was supposed to invite you, but trust me, Imri, you wouldn't have liked it. And anyway, we're going to the Night Court later, yes?"

I was still watching Sidonie. "Right."

Mavros gave me a shove. "Go on, I'll find you."

I hadn't gone more than a few steps in her general direction before I was waylaid by an older woman with a beaked mask and a towering headdress of feathers. "Prince Imriel!" She inclined her head, surveying me with a disapproving gaze. "What costume is this, pray?"

"Diogenes," I said. "My lady ...?"

"Marguerite Lafons, Marquise de Lafoneuil." Her lips thinned. "My estate lies on the western border of the duchy of Barthelme. You are aware of your holdings, are you not?"

"Yes, of course." I'd visited it exactly once. "Well met, Lady Marguerite."

"Are you aware that now that you've reached your majority, you're entitled to a hereditary seat in Parliament as the Duc de Barthelme?" She didn't wait for my answer. "No, I didn't think so. No one's claimed it since your father went off to La Serenissima. Young highness, I want a word with you." One hand clamped firmly on my elbow. "You'll do me the kindness of filling a plate for me while you listen, will you not?"

The habit of politeness was too deeply instilled in me to protest.

I escorted the Marquise de Lafoneuil to the Queen's table, where I procured a pair of seats and directed the serving staff to fill two plates, reckoning I might as well eat in the bargain. Meanwhile, Marguerite Lafons filled my ear with the inequities of taxation on the Namarrese wine trade. It went on at great length, but it seemed the gist of it was that there was a tax on the wine itself and a cooper's tax on the barrels, both of which the vintner was forced to pay.

I sat, chewing and nodding, as she expounded on it, thinking about Canis in his barrel. I thought about Gilot, too. I'd planned to make him steward of one of my two estates. He would have liked it, I thought; and he would have done a good job, too.

"Well?" the Marquise demanded. "Does that not seem unjust?"

I swallowed a mouthful of squab. "It does, my lady."

"You're wasting your time, Marguerite," a familiar voice drawled. "Yon princeling is bound for Alba, as surely as his father was for La Serenissima." A booted foot descended on the edge of my chair and a male figure leaned over me, arms propped on one knee. "Isn't that right, your highness?"

"Duc Barquiel." I glanced up at him. "What a pleasure."

Barquiel L'Envers, the Queen's uncle, snorted. He wore the same Akkadian finery he'd worn to the last Midwinter Masque, and he hadn't bothered with a mask either, only a turbaned helmet. "Lies don't become you, lad, any more than those rags do." He stroked my hair with a gauntleted hand. "Nor this tangled mane. I thought you might keep it short. It was quite becoming."

I went rigid with fury and stared at my plate, afraid I might strike him. I hadn't the slightest doubt he'd strike back, and a good deal of doubt over which one of us would prevail. I had youth on my side, but Barquiel L'Envers had a name as a formidable fighter. He'd been Commander of the Royal Army for a long time, before Ysandre made him step down.

"Barquiel!" Marguerite Lafons said tartly. "Leave the lad be. You always were a bully."

A chair scraped. "Hear, hear," a new voice said.

L'Envers straightened. "D'Essoms?"

I raised my head to see who had put that incredulous note in Barquiel L'Envers' voice. There were two men: one tall and D'Angeline, one slight and foreign. The D'Angeline smiled at me. He had dark hair and hooded eyes. "You must be Imriel de la Courcel. Well met, your highness. Childric d'Essoms, formerly of the Court of Chancery, lately ambassador to Ephesium."

"Well met, my lord." I stood, ignoring L'Envers, and reached across the table to clasp d'Essoms' hand. I didn't know who he was, but if Barquiel L'Envers didn't like him, I did. My silver medallion swung forward as I leaned over, and I heard d'Essoms' companion take a sharp breath. At the same time, there was some commotion a few yards away; a fresh swirl of gossip, the crowds parting.

"Pray, your highness, come and-" Childric d'Essoms stopped. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Phedre no Delaunay," he said softly.

There she stood, her cheeks flushed. "My lord d'Essoms."

A patron, a former patron. Elua knew, he couldn't be aught else. It wasn't anything like the priest in Naamah's Temple. The air between them fairly crackled. Ti-Philippe, a step behind Phedre, looked worried and a little foolish, holding her parasol. D'Essoms dismissed him without a second glance.

"Where's your Cassiline?" he asked her. "I've heard stories."