“They’ll probably throw their own celebration feast once they get over the shock of not having been ignored after all,” Seea said, then she lowered her voice again. “If your father insists on acting in that awful way, the least he could have done was let your mother take lunch in their apartment. Making her come out here like that is inexcusable.”

  “Part of the lesson he wants to teach is which one of them is in charge,” Derand responded, trying to be very careful of what words he chose. “My mother has a tendency to ? take over without realizing what she’s doing, part of which is to go her own way without considering the consequences of her actions. Not having to go through this same thing again will be an excellent incentive for her to think before she speaks or acts, but the time won’t be as embarrassing for her as you seem to believe. Not everyone is as observant as you obviously are, so there probably won’t be anyone else who notices.”

  Seea made a sound that was neither agreement nor argument, which pretty much closed the subject under discussion. As far as Derand was concerned, the resulting silence was decidedly golden. He remembered that his trouble with Seea had started when he’d decided to “keep her safe” by making her obey him in all things, a line of thought that might have been reached if they’d continued to talk.

  And Derand didn’t want that line of thought reached, not when Seea would have been perfectly within her rights to ask him where all that danger he’d mentioned was. After evading the question as long as possible, he’d then have to concede that he’d talked himself into believing there was danger to justify demanding her obedience. He enjoyed having the obedience of those around him, and as High King actually needed complete obedience to maintain his position. He’d somehow gotten the idea that having his wife be the sole exception to giving him that obedience would somehow ? undermine the respect he got?

  Somehow, somehow, somehow? Derand closed his eyes for a moment, knowing there was no

  “somehow” about the matter. Seea had gotten him angry, and he hadn’t wanted to look weak in front of her brother and his. Nothing but pride had pushed him into starting the chain of events that had ended with his giving Seea her freedom, but he would find a way to straighten out the mess. He would? !

  “Hey, Derand, you certainly do know how to throw an interesting celebration,” Gardal’s voice came, and Derand looked up to see Seea’s brother now standing to his right and grinning widely. “For a backward savage who lives in a hovel in the middle of constant fighting and killing, you don’t do half bad.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Derand answered dryly. “You have no idea how much your good opinion means to me.

  You know, I’ve been thinking that I might extend the borders of Arvin in a few years, and the day after your future coronation might be just the time.”

  “Okay, okay, I take it all back,” Gardal said with a laugh as he held up his hands, palms out toward Derand. “You have the most advanced and civilized city on this whole continent, much better than what will one day be mine. Is that enough to keep your fighters on this side of the border?”

  Derand snorted and started to expand the game he and Gardal used to play when they were younger, intent on making his friend come up with a real apology for the nonsense he used to spout all the time. At the same time he had the feeling that Seea had started to say something, but all that was suddenly pushed aside by abruptly raised voices.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Hileen was demanding, and the one she spoke to was Kaylea. “I was trying to start a conversation with you, but you made no effort to respond in any way at all. Elissia might not mind that sort of rudeness, but the rest of us do!”

  Until the last of Hileen’s words were spoken, Kaylea acted as if she hadn’t heard a syllable. But suddenly, for no apparent reason, the blond woman’s head snapped around and she glared at Hileen.

  “Don’t you dare talk about Elissia!” Kaylea snapped at Hileen, a wildness in the beautiful woman’s eyes.

  “You and those others don’t care about anything but yourselves, and I’m just like you! But Elissia is different, better than we are, truly fit to be High Queen. But I didn’t know she would be like that, I didn’t know! I swear I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known, I swear!”

  Kaylea seemed to be on the raw edge of hysteria, her hands to her hair as she continued to stare wildly at Hileen. The other woman stood silent with her mouth open, obviously trying to think of something to say, but Derand already had something to say. He strode over to Kaylea as Monil appeared at her side, trying without success to calm his wife.

  “What is it you wouldn’t have done, Kaylea?” Derand asked, fighting to sound gentle. “What did you do that involves Elissia?”

  “Derand, please,” Monil interrupted, his rasp of a voice sounding strained. “She’s upset and doesn’t know what she’s saying. She - “

  “Kaylea, answer me,” Derand persisted, paying no attention to the man who loved this woman. “Tell me what you did that involves Elissia.”

  “I thought she would be like the rest of us, so I arranged to get her out of my way,” Kaylea responded, her tone uneven and somehow distant. “I didn’t know she would say things and do things for other people without expecting even a single word in response or thanks. I told them to kill her, and to not let anyone keep them from killing her. But I didn’t know, I just didn’t know, I didn’t - “

  Monil lifted Kaylea from the floor and held her tightly to him, but she didn’t seem to notice. She just kept repeating that she didn’t know, but Derand did know. She was the one behind the attacks, and she had information that he had to have.

  “Monil, take her to your apartment and I’ll be along right behind you with a doctor,” Derand said, pretending he didn’t see the flinching terror in Monil’s eyes. “She’s obviously ill, but we do need to know everything she arranged. The doctor will give her something to quiet her down, and then we’ll be able to talk to her.”

  Monil nodded woodenly before heading out of the room with Kaylea, and Derand sent a servant for the doctor he wanted before he walked to the door and turned to face his other guests.

  “I’m sorry this had to interrupt our day, but it can’t be helped,” he said, looking around at people who were at least disturbed if not shocked. “Please sit down to lunch or have food brought to you in your apartments, and I’ll be back with you as quickly as possible.”

  Then he turned and headed for Monil’s apartment, where he would meet the doctor. He would soon have all the answers he needed, and then?

  Elissia watched Derand leave, more than a little upset by what had happened. By everything that had happened, and Kaylea’s confession was only a part of the whole. There were things she wanted to be alone to think about, but only about half of their guests left to have lunch in their apartments. The rest stayed to eat at the table, so Elissia was forced to stay as well. It would have been insulting if she’d just walked out?

  But at least those who stayed had gathered at the center of the long table, leaving Elissia alone in her end seat. Their muttering said they were talking about what had happened, and it would have been impolitic to discuss the subject in her hearing. Something about Kaylea’s confession bothered Elissia, but she couldn’t concentrate on what was causing the disturbance. Something else bothered her even more, and that something else was very personal.

  Elissia chose her meal from the servants’ trays almost at random, certainly paying no real attention to what she asked for. Derand’s brief conversation with Gardal before Kaylea’s confession had come as a great shock to Elissia because it suddenly told her why she’d so disliked the idea of coming to Arvin. Gardal had been saying the same thing about Derand and Arvin for years, ever since Elissia was very young, and somehow she’d missed the fact that Gardal was joking. She’d come to believe that Arvin was a backward place of hovels and constant warfare, and because of that she’d wanted to avoid Arvin at all cost!

  The food in front of Elissia was still hot and tasty, but it went down her throat in an almost automatic way.

  She’d tried so hard to keep from having to go to a place that sounded like one of the more horrible hells the gods had created, and even seeing the truth for herself hadn’t changed her mind. She’d been surprised that people weren’t being murdered in the streets in Derand’s city, but hadn’t been bright enough to question why she still expected the murders to start at any minute.

  “I’m an idiot, and I don’t deserve to be here,” Elissia found herself muttering as she stared down into her teacup. “Isn’t it lucky that I maneuvered myself into a position where I don’t have to stay? Kaylea said I’m better than her and the others, but I’m not. I’m actually worse, no matter what that poor woman thinks.”

  That poor woman? Elissia found it painful to remember how ? distraught Kaylea had sounded, and even more painful to imagine how little of kindness the blond woman must have had in her life. Elissia had given Kaylea no more than a few words in support, and then had arranged things so that both Tomia and Kaylea would not feel left out. Two small, unimportant actions that seemed to have eaten away at Kaylea to the point where the blond woman had lost control of herself. She’d hired men to kill Elissia to clear the way for her to become Derand’s High Queen; she obviously hadn’t been lying, but something didn’t quite fit?

  Or maybe I don’t want everything to fit, Elissia thought, the sudden realization coming to chill her blood. I promised myself that I’d get out of Derand’s way once we knew who was behind the attacks, and now we know. Isn’t it also time to admit that leaving would be a waste of time because I have nowhere to go?

  There’s only one thing I can do, and I’d better get to it fast before I lose my nerve?

  Elissia looked up to find that just about everyone had finished eating and had left the table. A few people still stood around in small groups talking, but the rest were now gone. That meant Elissia could also leave without insulting anyone, so she lost no time doing exactly that. Neither her parents nor Derand’s had stayed to take lunch in the dining room, and there was a good chance they’d gone to hear what Kaylea had to say.

  It didn’t take long for Elissia to get back to her apartment, and a few minutes later she had one of the vials of “tea” in her hand. She carried the vial into the sitting room with her, wanting a glass for the liquid rather than simply swallowing it down, which was foolish but seemed necessary. And with the cork removed there was an odor to the liquid now that was very much like one of the strong alcoholic drinks the men liked so well. A short glass standing near the wine and whisky seemed perfect as well as fitting, so she emptied the contents of the vial into the glass, left the vial in the glass’s place, then went to a chair and sat.

  “Okay, now you have the stuff in a glass,” she muttered when she found herself just sitting and holding the glass. “You know you have to do this, so why are you wasting time? Why don’t you just drink it?”

  The answer to that question was perfectly simple once Elissia stopped to consider it: killing yourself isn’t as easy as some people think. A cold fear twists your insides and makes your hand shake, and even though you’ve seen to the last of your responsibilities you still find yourself wondering if there wasn’t something you forgot to do. How that can be possible when you have all the answers you were looking for isn’t quite clear, but -

  “But I don’t have all the answers,” Elissia suddenly realized aloud, feeling a frown crease her brow. That supposed servant she’d killed in Derand’s father’s palace, the one who had said she was in the way? He, obviously, had been sent by Kaylea, but the other attackers couldn’t possibly have the same source.

  Kaylea might have told her hirelings not to let anyone stop them from killing Elissia, but that anyone couldn’t have included Derand. After all, the blond woman had wanted Elissia out of the way so she could become High Queen. If Derand ended up dead, that plan would have been out the window.

  “So there has to be someone else after Derand, someone we haven’t found yet,” Elissia murmured as she leaned forward to put the glass she held on a table not far from her chair. “But the whole thing still doesn’t make any sense. Those men are so used to fighting wars that if one of them thought he could be High King in Derand’s place he would probably lead his fighters in attack personally.”

  But they weren’t attacking in an open way, one of them was coming from the shadows behind Derand’s back. Even though they all had to understand that if they could have held the federation together as High King, they would have done so before Derand took over. It was as if someone was ignoring the facts because he didn’t like them, expecting his wants and desires to change things simply because he wanted it that way. But that didn’t sound like any of the men she’d met. It sounded more like -

  “The other enemy isn’t a man, it’s another woman,” Elissia breathed, suddenly knowing exactly who that other woman had to be. “She’s working through her husband, but she’s in complete control of him. I noticed it yesterday when they got here and then again today, but didn’t realize I’d noticed it. I’d better tell Derand right away.”

  Elissia got to her feet with the intention of going straight to where Derand was, but she wasn’t able to take the first step before a knock on the hall door presaged the opening of that door. Two people came in, and the woman smiled at Elissia.

  “We told the guardsmen that Derand asked us to meet him in his apartment,” the woman said, letting her strong amusement show clearly. “Since we’re honored guests and royalty ourselves, our word wasn’t questioned. Aren’t you going to welcome us and invite us to sit down, Elissia? I feel as if we’re old friends.”

  Elissia stared at the woman, fighting to keep her emotions off her face. The woman had said what she’d told the guardsmen, not that what she’d said was true. Derand hadn’t invited these people to the apartment, which meant they were here for reasons of their own. Those reasons weren’t likely to be to the benefit of Derand or herself, not when these were the people behind the attacks aimed at killing Derand?

  “Well, at least you now know who was after your blood,” Derand’s father said after letting out a deep breath. They and Gardal - along with Seea’s parents - stood in the hall outside Monil and Kaylea’s apartment, and none of them had enjoyed questioning a woman who was close to a complete breakdown.

  “I don’t think so,” Derand answered, his mood close to black. “Kaylea was after Seea rather than me, and all the men she hired have been accounted for. That still leaves a good number of attackers who can’t be accounted for, ones Kaylea claims she knows nothing about.”

  “Surely you’re not going to accept the word of a woman who tried to have another woman killed,” King Ostrin put in with his usual gentleness tinged by distress. “Trying to minimize her crime would be a natural reaction for someone like that.”

  “Kaylea is too busy feeling guilty to minimize what she did,” Derand disagreed with a shake of his head. “I would guess that Seea is the first woman to ever do something for Kaylea without an obvious ulterior motive. Seea had every right to crow over the woman she’d bested, but instead she showed a concern that wasn’t thrown out just to make herself look good. Monil said Kaylea started to brood yesterday, but he thought it was just because of the punishment. He had no idea she’d hired assassins; he thought she just meant to displace any other woman by using her beauty.”

  “Monil’s situation leads me to think that arranged marriages might be the best thing after all,” Gardal put in, looking glum. “He was the one who chose Kaylea as his wife because he fell in love with her, and look where he is.”

  “A man can fall in love with a woman without making a fool of himself,” Derand’s father said, gently clapping Gardal on the shoulder. “As long as you don’t indulge the woman - or yourself - in everything, you won’t have a problem. And as long as the love isn’t a one way affair. That arrangement never leads to anything but tragedy.”

  “Right now I’m more concerned with hatred than with love,” Derand said, still wrapped in the dark mood.

  “I even considered that Monil might have hired assassins himself in order to give Kaylea what she wanted, but that’s nonsense. The way Monil was ready to challenge me yesterday proves that if he wanted me dead he’d make the effort himself, not hire others to do the thing for him. Now all I have to do is figure out which of the others doesn’t see the situation the same.”

  Everyone including Seea’s mother began to nominate their own candidates for major enemy, and the noise was threatening to give Derand a headache. What he needed was to find some place quiet to sit and think, but his other guests were waiting for him to continue the tour of the games. What he needed was a good rainstorm now, to give him an excuse to call off the games for the moment, but that wasn’t likely to happen. It was a beautiful day out, and -

  “Excuse me, Your Majesty, but you’re wanted back at your apartment,” a voice said, and Derand looked up to see a young girl bobbing in an awkward curtsey in front of him. “A king and queen said they had important information for you, information you needed to have as quickly as possible.”

  “Which king and queen, girl?” Derand’s father asked just an instant before Derand asked the same thing.

  “Don’t you know how many kings and queens there are in the palace right now?”

  “No, sir, I’m very new, hired especially for the festivities,” the girl said, her nervousness increasing. “I don’t know anyone in the palace yet except for the king. My king.”

  Derand thanked the girl and sent her on her way, not at all eager to hear someone else’s list of who had to be guilty. What he really needed was that quiet place to sit down and think, and when he saw that his companions were busily engaged in talking to one another he just faded back and left them to their discussion. He’d apologize later for having walked away without a word, but right now?