With no word-official or otherwise-about Ami, Ash, or any of them, I resigned myself to waiting as best I could, and I spent a few productive hours reviewing the Vervaldr contract before dutifully descending for supper. It steadied me that the scrolls I requested had been delivered so readily. It indicated that the King had not given any formal orders to cut off my access.

Derodotur had described the terms fairly enough and the document impressed me in its thoroughness and logical clarity. Had the brutish Captain Harlan drawn up the contract himself? It seemed unlikely. Though he might be more articulate than the typical hired thug, I doubted he had that sort of education. Else, why be a mercenary?

Supper was a quiet affair, as Uorsin did not show. Whispers implied that he closeted himself with the Dasnarian witch. I knew well how much the court at Ordnung loved to throw that term around, so I told myself to take it with a grain of salt. Still, from seeing the woman, I wondered how much of that might be accurate. She made my skin crawl. The mercenary captain had called her the Mistress of Deyrr-clearly a Dasnarian term that might not translate to Common Tongue.

She was not mentioned in the Vervaldrs' contract, unless I'd missed the reference. I didn't think so, however, as all other specifics had been very clear. An unusual and concerning omission.

The mercenary captain didn't show for supper either, for all his insistence on talking with me, which meant I sat alone at the head table. Usually I minded that not at all, but the quiet on top of the growing worry over Ami ate at my nerves. Truth be told, I missed the minstrels. They added a welcome distraction when conversation became scarce. And nobody was conversing. As if all possible topics carried too much gravity, given the tension in the air. We all waited for further developments, as if under siege.

I ate quickly, with thoughts of making an early night of it. Some more time with the documents I'd requested-due diligence meant more than an excuse, after all, and I worried over what besides today's petitions might have gone neglected-some wine and peace, and I might be able to sleep. The best option, as I wouldn't be wearing myself out with a late-night workout, since I had no doubt the determined captain wouldn't hesitate to seek me out in the private courtyard again. The contract damnably gave him and his designees access to all of Ordnung, even the family quarters, in the name of personal protection and security.

On one level, it made sense, to use the otherwise idle mercenaries so. On the other, our personal guard had nothing else to do. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around what Uorsin was thinking. Either he played a deep game that I hadn't sorted out, or . . . Or he's gone out of his mind with paranoia. The traitorous thought made me feel ill and I left the table without finishing my meal.

It worried me deeply, in a vague, formless dread that added to my uneasy stomach, that Illyria had asked after the Star of Annfwn. Walking through the hallways alone, I let my fingers pass over the round of the topaz embedded in the hilt of my sword.

Mother had given it to me for my seventh birthday. That had been a good day. Andi, still a toddler in the nursery, had stayed behind, and Salena took me for a rare outing, pulling rank to get me excused from the practice yard. She rarely did so, but when the Queen took it in her head to require something, no one stood in her way. Even Uorsin, though he fumed, backed off when she gave him a certain look.

Though no one spoke of it outright, power had hung about her like a rumble of far-off thunder that's felt, not heard. When she pinned Uorsin with that storm-cloud glare, the hair prickled on the back of my neck, standing up as if a lightning bolt might stab from the sky at any moment. Though his face turned signature red, he'd backed up a step and then flung up his hands, ordering us out of his sight, as if that had been his idea all along.

My gut had twisted with a blend of terror at disappointing him and sheer awe that my mother could accomplish what no one else could.

So, for that birthday, I'd had my mother all to myself. The best of her, too. She'd been happy, with her hair brushed and hanging loose. We took a picnic and rode up into the hills above Ordnung. She sang songs in the oddly liquid Tala tongue and told me stories of Annfwn.

"I wish we could go now," she'd said, her gaze focused west. "If I could, I'd take you and Andi and we'd ride over the mountains. You should see it. The water is bluer than aquamarines and as warm as a bath. You can run or ride on the beach for days, whiter than snow and brighter than diamonds. No need to bring picnic food, because you can pluck fruit from the trees."

I laughed. "Fruit doesn't grow on trees!"

"You are so like your father, with all his fire and certainty. I want you to keep the best of him and discard the rest. Do you understand what I'm telling you?" Her gray eyes had turned serious, the air thickening with the ominous pressure of a summer storm, though the sky remained pure, cloudless blue.

I didn't understand, but the way she seemed to look through me, seeing something else, filled me with apprehension. "Let's go, then," I urged her. "We'll sneak Andi out of the nursery and go tonight."

"Ah, my brilliant and brave daughter. If only it were so easy."

"It can be," I insisted.

"I have to stay this course I committed to long before you were born. One more daughter for the world. And you"-she stroked my hair, long like hers then-"you have to stay in Ordnung, with your father. It won't be an easy path. The one of duty and honor never is. I want you to remember that, in the long years ahead, that I understand what you'll go through, that it's a path I myself chose. In that way, you are the most my daughter. To help you remember that, I have a gift for you, to honor your natal day."

She'd wrapped it in a piece of silk tied with a ribbon, and I untied it eagerly, catching my breath at the sight of the orb. Perfectly round and smooth, flawlessly golden, like the sun at high noon. I held it up to the sky and it seemed like a second star, glowing from within. My mother wrapped my hands around it, folding its light into my palms.

"I brought this from Annfwn. It belonged to my mother and her mother before her, back more generations than I can count. Keep it with you, always. Remember that you are the daughter of queens as well as of a king. A star to guide you. The Star of Annfwn. I hope you get to see Annfwn, but . . ." Her voice caught then, silvery eyes glistening, and for a terrified moment I thought she might break our rule and weep. She stopped herself, however. "But if you don't, you'll have this piece of it. Don't let anyone take it from you. You will need it someday. Follow your dreams when you do. And remember my love goes with you, always."

I did as she asked, keeping it hidden for the most part, carrying it in my pocket. Especially after she died. The warm, round weight reminded me of her, that she really had lived, no matter what that empty throne declared. Then, when little Ami was about six, she ferreted it out of my pocket and-as she did with everything-demanded that I give it to her.

She begged prettily, with wide violet eyes and many kisses pressed to my cheek, a technique that admittedly usually worked on me. I found it difficult to deny her anything. We all did. When I refused, she threw a full temper tantrum, complete with tears and screams, threatening to tell our father to make me give it to her. She was just a little girl, so lovely and so terribly overindulged. I'd gotten angry enough that I came close to slapping her.

Until Lady Zevondeth intervened. She'd seemed old to me then, and that was more than ten years ago. My mother's faithful servant and our adviser on all things for proper young ladies to know, she calmed Ami with another jewel and slipped the topaz away, out of Ami's sight and grasp, promising to take care of it. Days later, she called me to her rooms and presented me with a new sword-the topaz firmly fixed into the pommel. Never since had I been parted from it. Over the years, though, I'd grown so accustomed to touching it that I sometimes forgot to look, to admire its deep and brilliant beauty.

Andi and Ami called it a cabochon and I never corrected them. Only I and Zevondeth knew how much of it lay beneath the surface. My personal star.

I didn't think Amelia remembered that day, though sometimes I caught her looking at the jewel with a speculative eye. I never told her or Andi where it came from. A piece of our mother that was mine alone. Which wasn't fair of me, because I'd had far more of her than either of them had. Andi barely remembered her and Ami not at all. I'd tried to be a mother to them, as best I could, and had not succeeded very well.

My list of failures seemed to be growing of late.

Dafne had left me a stack of scrolls and books, with salient passages on Dasnaria thoughtfully marked with ribbons, Danu bless her. Instead of diving into them, however, and with that long-ago memory heavy in my mind, I took advantage of the solitude to pull the doll Salena had given me from its hiding place. Maybe the Star had some significance I'd forgotten or never known. Find the doll, Ami and Andi had both nagged me multiple times, insisting our mother had somehow left them messages in theirs. They didn't know that looking had been unnecessary for me. I'd known exactly where it was, since the day my father yanked it from my hands and threw it across the nursery. I kept it behind some particularly heavy and uninteresting tomes on obsolete shipping laws in the Isles of Remus. Carefully hidden away, so he wouldn't find it and break it any more than it already was.

It was the one pretty thing I'd kept, though she'd suffered from the passage of time. The porcelain hands and feet had broken that long-ago day and had mostly crumbled away. One hand remained with a sharp fragment I used to like to poke my finger with, just to see how much pain I could stand. The little crown on her head had dented but still sat atop her bloodred hair. Though the painted-on features had blurred and faded, her queenly face was vivid in my memories.

I smoothed her dress, made of shining silver, dulled from all the times I'd done that very thing. Why I liked to pet it, I didn't know. It soothed me. Anchored me in a way little else did.

After Andi told me to, though I had been skeptical at the time, I'd of course gotten the doll out and examined it. Removing the gown and petticoats reminded me of being a little girl again, when I'd had many outfits to dress her in. I'd even gone so far as to cut the doll open, searching the packed cotton innards. The slit remained open still, as I hadn't had time or opportunity to sew it up again and I didn't want to hand it off to anyone to fix. The slice had distorted her shape, though, and it annoyed me to see her less than she should be.

To be diligent and thorough-after all, Ami insisted she'd found a message, too-I unlaced the gown, removed the undergarments, and unpacked the stuffing yet again. And found nothing more than I had the other times I'd looked.

It shouldn't make me sad. Ridiculous, the sting of disappointment. After all, Salena had given me other gifts. And she'd told me things to remember, as she'd been unable to with Andi and Ami so young. I didn't need special messages.

I was simply in a melancholy mood. Shaken by Illyria's unexpected question, which annoyed me. Work would help me shake it off and calm my nerves.

Putting the doll back together as well as I could without taking the time needed to mend her correctly, I hid her away again, in the little bed I'd made for her as a foolish girl. Nevertheless, feeling both nostalgic and vaguely silly, I still tucked her in under the doll-sized satin comforter, as if by doing so, I could safeguard us all. Folding the gown neatly beside her, I hid her away again in the shadows behind the big books.

Then I dutifully reviewed the documents I needed to, saving the Dasnarian research for after. Tax revenues. Crop reports. A plague outbreak in Noredna. Deployment of troops. So many recruits sent to Mohraya-where were they all? I'd fallen months out of touch and puzzled over many of the changes. Some of the numbers simply didn't add up. Deep into summing a column of figures, I barely registered a knocking at the door to my rooms.

It came again. Who in Danu's shadow had come to see me this time of night? Any of the likely candidates wouldn't bother to knock, and the outer guards would have stopped any threat or opportunistic courtier. Maybe Dafne had found something interesting and hesitated to disturb me, for whatever reason. "Come in already!" I called out, noting down my last calculation so I wouldn't forget my place. That total definitely did not match the one I'd seen on another report. Where I had I put that?

Someone cleared his throat and I looked up to see Captain Harlan standing on the other side of my desk. Why had the thrice-dammed guards let him in? This mercenary contract had all the protocols upset. I would have to talk to the Hawks about standing duty. People I could count on.

"Did you kill my guards?" I asked.

He indicated his empty sheath. "No, but they did relieve me of weapons."

At least they weren't complete idiots. "How can I help you, Captain? It's quite late."

"I waited for you."

"I can't imagine why. I told you not to."

"Nevertheless. I have several important things to discuss with you."

I sat back in the chair. "So you mentioned. What's on your mind that couldn't be said in court or the practice yard?"

"It needs privacy."

I gestured at the quiet rooms. "This is as private as it gets, inside Ordnung."

He hesitated, angling himself so his back wasn't entirely to the door. "It's not inappropriate-for me to be alone with you in your chambers?"

I couldn't help it-a laugh bubbled from deep within. "No, Captain. If there ever was a time that anyone fretted over my virtue, it has long since passed. What are your Dasnarian women like, that they don't fight and they can't be trusted on their own?"

"Not like you, Your Highness," he said with a wry smile, casting his gaze over the unruly piles of scrolls and books on my desk. "You're doing paperwork? Don't you employ scribes for such things?"

"I'm not much for hired help."

"Or trusting anyone else."

"That, too," I agreed easily. "Certainly not blindly."

"And yet you won't give me the opportunity to prove myself."

"Why should you care what my opinion is? I have no need to rely on you. It's not my name on this contract." I nudged the parchment with my quill.

"You did read it."

"Of course."

"And your conclusions?" His expression dared me to express doubts, knowing full well I'd found nothing untoward. Except the raw fact that Uorsin had never hired mercenaries before.

"I concluded that this Illyria, Mistress of Deyrr, is not mentioned."

"Deyrr," he corrected, rolling the r. "In your tongue it means 'death,' after a fashion."

Not news to relieve my worries. "What can you tell me about her?"

"What can you tell me about the Star of Annfwn?" he shot back.

"I told you I don't know what it is."

Harlan made a growling sound, a rumble of growing impatience. "Your problem, Your Highness, is that you put faith in all the wrong people."

"I don't recall soliciting your opinion on the matter."

"Well, you get it. If Illyria wants it, whatever it is, that can't be good. She won't give up."

"Why don't you give me a reason to put faith in you by telling me what you know?"

He looked grim, gestured at the wine goblet on my desk. "It's not a comfortable tale. Have any of that to share?"

10.

I contemplated him a moment. It had been some time since I'd indulged in a late-night conversation over wine. Since before Andi left. Perhaps he'd have something useful on this Illyria. "Why not? Make yourself comfortable in the sitting room. I'll fetch the wine."

He chose one of the chairs by the fire-not my favorite chair, which made me wonder if he'd noticed the signs and made the choice out of consideration-and accepted the goblet I handed him. I settled into my chair, stretching my feet to the fire. Though the days stayed high-summer warm, at night the snow-cooled air slid down from the mountain peaks, adding a chill. The blaze felt welcome.

"I've served a number of royal families in my career." The mercenary likewise made himself comfortable. "I have never known a princess who keeps no attendants and pours her own wine."

"I like my privacy, when I can have it. And there's not much luxury in the field."

"I expected grander chambers, also."

I shrugged a little. "They've been mine since I left the nursery. I had no interest in moving."

"Shouldn't you have taken over the queen's rooms?"

"You've been quite busy, watching and drawing conclusions."

"You like to imply that I'm a spy. Understanding the politics in a given situation can be crucial to being on good working terms with a client. One disadvantage of being a mercenary is coming into conflicts with many unknown parameters. I like to know what I can."

I mulled that over. A legal scholar's brain inside that thick skull. He probably had written that contract, after all. Besides, anyone could-and likely would-give him the answers he sought. "Fair enough. Yes, I could have taken Salena's rooms. I chose not to. They're Amelia's when she visits now-appropriate for her rank as regent mother."

"Queen Andromeda would outrank her, would she not?"

"Yes. But that presupposes Andi would ever return to Ordnung, which she won't. And, if she did, she'd prefer her traditional chambers, as I do. Ami will have the throne of Avonlidgh soon enough, regardless, as Old Erich can't have many years left." Particularly if he persisted in stirring up civil war.

"And when you ascend to the High Throne?"

"That's not something I contemplate and neither should you. Uorsin is High King and I'll do everything in my power to ensure that remains the case."

He didn't comment on that. Rather he took a swallow of wine, studying me. "You're not what I expected."

"You have the advantage of me in that I didn't expect you at all."

"No, you couldn't have. I advised the High King against secrecy, but he seemed quite determined." He shrugged over the vagaries of clients. "You read the contract, so you know we agreed to it. I would have thought he would have communicated our presence to his heir, however."

I elected not to respond to that. Of course he should have told me. I hated how much it pained and concerned me that he hadn't. "I also know that there are omissions in the contract. Glaring ones. As I mentioned earlier."

"Not so much. Illyria is not one of mine, nor did she travel with us."

"Then how did she come to be here?"

He caught my gaze with his. "I don't know. She was here when we arrived. That's one of the concerns I wished to bring to your attention."

I waited for him to say more, but the moment stretched out. The mercenary regarded me calmly. Maintaining his defense against my next move.

"Have you shared this concern with anyone else?"

He shook his head, a slow silent swivel that reinforced how unusual this move was for him. Telling me without saying that there had been no one else before this to speak of it with. What did he intend by telling me?

"I've heard tell that she has been closeted with the High King."

"Even as we speak."

"He's had many lovers. More than can be counted. It's his right."

"She is no simple lover."