“You don’t mean…” Aefric said, as the implications chilled him.

  “Your grace,” she said, “I believe that Ser Calder has been spying for Nelazzi since before the Godswalk Wars. I believe further that he actively aided and abetted her work in the greater Deepwater region. And I’ve gathered evidence to support my claim.”

  “Aefric,” King Colm said, thoughtfully. “Once this business with Malimfar is resolved, talk to me again about Nelazzi. I may just let you go after her.”

  Aefric felt a vicious smile spread across his face. “Yes, your majesty.”

  “That is all I have to report, for now,” Elkari said.

  “Exemplary work, as always,” Aefric said. “Anyone else?”

  “One more thing, your grace,” Kentigern said. “The eldrani have requested that you be present this morning, for the testing.”

  “Testing?” King Colm asked.

  “A kind of eldrani magic that’s all but lost,” Aefric said. “They call it soul-testing.” He explained about Morgard.

  “Marvelous,” Queen Eppida said. “I’d like to see that as well.”

  “As would I,” King Colm said.

  So much for a break this morning. Aefric was starting to think he’d never get to read Byrhta’s letter.

  Kentigern found for the Sinflissacta a small ballroom, under a colorless part of Water’s End’s glass dome. The room was square shaped, and no more than thirty feet to a side. The sky above the dome was a rich blue, lightly sprinkled with clouds.

  The ballroom’s tapestries had been stripped from the walls for this, leaving them bare plaster, painted soft gray. Furniture had been cleared out as well, leaving uncovered white oak flooring.

  Li’sheneesha and Li’nasachal had been in here since before dawn, preparing. And Aefric could tell they’d been working magic the moment he stepped into the room.

  It wasn’t that they’d warded the room, or enchanted it. No. Nothing so obvious and overt as that.

  It was more that … they’d tuned the magical acoustics of the room. Its feel was different. He wasn’t sure quite how, as he walked in there that morning. He’d need time, if he wanted to figure out exactly what they’d done.

  But this was not the time for that.

  He was accompanied, as he entered, by their majesties, as well as Kentigern, Sers Vria and Temat, and two Knights of the Crown, who lurked behind them.

  Meeting them there was Bebara, Aefric’s ducal physician, and cleric of Nilasah. She was a vibrant older woman, wearing the yellow robes of her order, complete with the hand-shaped symbol of her goddess.

  Originally, Karbin was going to attend. But since Aefric was requested, Karbin instead flew over the Haven and Tainfyr rivers, trying to find Calder and Gwawl.

  And Calder was no longer “Ser Calder.” Before Aefric had left his morning meeting, he’d given the orders to strip Calder of all titles, moneys and lands, as well as formally issuing the order for his arrest.

  And, as their majesties were present at the time, King Colm personally augmented Aefric’s orders with his own signature and seal.

  Whatever else Calder Ol’Ulith might be, he no longer had the right to call himself a knight. Not that that would probably stop him…

  Aefric shook himself, and brought his attention back to the ballroom, and the rite he was about to watch.

  The two eldrani faced each other in the exact middle of the chamber. They looked enough alike to be fraternal twins, and not just in their matching beauty. Both with that skin, so very dark, and looking darker still beneath their simple white robes. They shared the same long hair, the purple of late sunset. The same flame-yellow eyes.

  Their hands were raised, fingers spread and palms facing each other’s palms. They traced different patterns in the air with their palms, and though a hint of magic followed the movements, they weren’t truly casting a spell.

  It was closer to accurate to say that they were adjusting the room slightly, to account for the recent arrivals.

  They paused. Turned as one to look at those arrivals.

  “You honor us with your presence, Kalifnia,” Li’sheneesha said, approaching Aefric, then switched to High Eldrani. “May I ask that you refrain from applying your Art until our work is complete?”

  “Of course,” Aefric said, in the common tongue. “There’s no need for me to do any spellcasting during your ritual.” He turned to the king and queen. “Your majesties, may I present Li’sheneesha and Li’nasachal. The Sinflissacta I spoke of. Li’sheneesha, these are my lieges, King Colm Stronghand and Queen Eppida Fyrenn.”

  Li’sheneesha bowed smoothly. “Your majesties honor us with your attendance.”

  “I have never witnessed the work of a Sinflissecta before,” King Colm said. “I am eager to see.”

  “Sinflissacta,” she corrected gently. “And few of your race have, your majesty.”

  Aefric had a sneaking suspicion that Kentigern had coached them about addressing royalty.

  She returned to the center of the room then.

  “Bring in the … negala,” Li’nasachal said.

  “Candidate,” Li’sheneesha said. “Bring in the candidate.”

  Aefric nodded, and two guards escorted in Morgard Ol’Nara, who was dressed in the same kind of simple white robe as the Sinflissacta.

  “Here,” Li’sheneesha said. “Stand between us. The acoustics are best.”

  Morgard frowned, but did as they bid.

  “Now,” she said. “Disrobe.”

  She and Li’nasachal removed their robes in a single smooth motion, and dropped them to the floorboards.

  Morgard flushed bright red, and wasn’t nearly so smooth in his movements. Once his robe joined the others on the floor, he shook nervously and put his hands down to cover his genitals.

  “You took the bath?” Li’nasachal asked.

  “I did,” Morgard said. “Used that smelly stuff, too.”

  “We know,” Li’sheneesha said. “Had you not, your smell would be broken.”

  She frowned, as though she didn’t like her choice of that last word, but shrugged, and abandoned the common tongue.

  “Naked are we born,” she said. “Our destinies inscribed into our blood and bone by the stars of our birth. And yet our choices, our will, focuses what is written into us to into what reaches our skin and exudes to suffuse the air about us. Together, our stars and our wills make up our truth, which swirls about us, waiting to sing.”

  Li’nasachal intoned a low note that seemed to slither through the room, with a wisp of power flowing in its wake.

  Li’sheneesha keened a note as high as his was low. A tone that seemed to float and dip its way through the room. Counterpoint to the low tone. An opposing direction, but somehow harmonizing where they crossed, creating a third note.

  The two eldrani began a slow dance around Morgard, mirroring each other’s movements through slow steps and quick hops. Sudden spins and drops and leaps. Their palms always facing one another, pressing and receding. Pressing and receding.

  And as they danced, they held their notes.

  And yet…

  And yet it seemed that more notes joined the chorus. As though each of the two eldrani voices somehow began layering in additional sounds. Forming chords. And those chords had undertones and overtones and…

  Was that a third voice?

  Morgard stood there between the two eldrani as they worked their art. He shivered. Looked about, caught between uncertainty and fear. Not to mention embarrassment at standing there naked before the small crowd.

  His mouth was closed. And yet, Aefric would have sworn he could hear, just at the edges of his hearing, a third voice coming from Morgard.

  It didn’t sound like his speaking voice, either. There was a hollow, aethereal quality to it. And it never seemed to settle on a note, but shifted and … twisted somehow. Almost hiding in the overtones and undertones of the eldrani voices.

  And suddenly, the two eldrani stopped mid-step.

  Li’sheneesha’s left palm barely a handspan from Morgard’s chest, right above his heart. Li’nasachal’s left palm mirrored, just behind Morgard’s torso.

  Li’sheneesha looked into Morgard’s eyes and made a high-pitched sound that sounded kind of like, “Tah!”

  Li’nasachal, staring into the back of Morgard’s head, made the same sound, octaves lower.

  Then it was done. Aefric felt the release of their raised power — which he then realized had built to a significant amount, even though he hadn’t noticed them raising it — even before they stopped mirroring each other.

  “You may dress,” Li’sheneesha said to Morgard, while she and Li’nasachal shrugged on their gowns.

  Morgard quickly snatched his gown up and pulled it on.

  Li’sheneesha walked up to Aefric, and spoke in High Eldrani.

  “That one lacks confidence. Until he has it, he will follow any stronger will, even down a dark path. His heart is wounded by past misdeed, but retains a good core. For now. If you give him confidence, Kalifnia, he will be strong for you.”

  “Thank you,” Aefric said.

  “It is no more than our calling and our pleasure,” she said. “I hope we may serve again soon.”

  “Morgard,” Aefric said. “I will meet with you later today to discuss your future. For now, if you swear you will behave yourself, I will rescind your guard.”

  “I swear to obey your will, your grace,” Morgard said with a shaky bow.

  “Excellent,” Aefric said. “Then you are dismissed for now.”

  “My High Eldrani is a bit rusty,” King Colm said. “I didn’t quite follow what she told you.”

  “He’ll make a good ler,” Aefric said, “if I can give him some confidence first.”

  Kentigern moved off to speak with Li’sheneesha and Li’nasachal. A page approached.

  So many pages at Water’s End. Aefric couldn’t believe how many sometimes. He only knew perhaps a dozen by face and name, and this young man wasn’t one of them.

  “Your majesties,” he said, with a smooth, deep bow, then gave Aefric a slightly shallower bow. “Your grace, I am to inform you that the royal justiciar has arrived, and that lunch is ready.”

  Lunch? Just how long was that ritual? It felt as though it couldn’t have—

  Aefric’s stomach rumbled.

  “I agree, your grace,” King Colm said with a smile. “Let us make lunch our priority. Beatritz already has my orders regarding the justiciar.”

  But as Aefric turned to follow the page, he saw Ser Beatritz enter the room with a hurried step. The hard soles of her leather boots tapping the wooden floorboards like drums.

  Ser Beatritz, like the other knights around them, wore her full plate today. And she wore her greatsword strapped to her back.

  “Your majesties, your grace,” she said with a quick bow. “Duke Wylyn’s ship docks in the harbor even now.”

  “Already?” Aefric asked, and nerves made his heart pound. He knew so much about what was going on, but what if he’d gotten some key element wrong?

  No. He knew that Duke Wylyn’s wizard Sifwyn had cast those spells in the Dragonscar. So the duke had to be behind an attempt to seize the gold.

  Didn’t he?

  “It seems the winds blow south over the Risen Sea,” Ser Beatritz said crisply, bringing his thoughts back to the moment.

  “Or they hurried things with magic,” Aefric muttered.

  “Either way,” Queen Eppida said, “it seems that lunch with our good duke’s court will have to wait. Pity. I’d wanted to meet more of his courtiers today.”

  “You still can, dear,” King Colm said to her. “I don’t think we’re both needed for this meeting.”

  She frowned. “It’s not the meeting I’m thinking of.”

  “Oh,” King Colm said, arousing Aefric’s curiosity. “Well, I’ll still meet them at dinner.”

  Their majesties’ eyes met, and something unspoken passed between them. Both nodded.

  “Page,” she called. “I’m ready to be escorted to lunch. The others will not be joining me.”

  Aefric almost interrupted her. After all, surely Bebara and Kentigern would want lunch. But then, they knew how to find lunch on their own.

  “The justiciar?” King Colm asked Ser Beatritz.

  “I gave Ser Ober handle of the matter,” she said.

  “Good enough,” he said, and turned to Aefric. “Shall we?”

  Dozens of meeting rooms in the Castle at Water’s End. Each with a different use and purpose. The one Aefric sat in now had been chosen for several reasons.

  It was close enough to the kitchens for lunch to be served hot.

  It was down on the first floor, making it quickly available at times like this one.

  It was considered one of the most secure rooms in the castle. No windows. Not even arrow slits. No entrance from the servants’ backway. No spy holes. The walls were thrice as thick as those of most of the castle, all but guaranteeing that scrying on any meeting in this room would be nearly impossible.

  Generations of Soulfists had warded the room heavily, in their best attempt to remove “nearly” from the equation.

  From what Aefric had been told, if Water’s End ever came under serious bombardment, this was one of four rooms he could expect to be taken to for safety.

  Assuming he allowed anyone to “secure” him with his castle under attack. Which didn’t strike Aefric as likely.

  The room was round, and about twenty feet across. No tapestries on the walls, but a single immense mural had been painted over the soft gray paint on the plaster.

  The mural depicted Armyr in detail, as well as about two hundred miles beyond its borders in all directions.

  Opposite the mural, only two other adornments on the walls. The flag of Armyr and the flag of Deepwater.

  In the center of the room sat a dark red, calinwood table. Round. Eight feet across, surrounded by a dozen chairs, designed to match the scrollwork along the table’s edge.

  The Deepwater seal had been artistically burned into the center of the table, and the backs of the chairs.

  Above the table hung a calinwood chandelier, though no candles burned in it. It lit the room with magic provided long ago by the Soulfists.

  A small buffet had been set up on a curved, calinwood table under the flags. Smoked lake marlin topped with slices of nava fruit, a salad of mixed greens, and honeyed oat bread, along with pitchers of crisp day beer.

  Aefric sat beside his majesty at the round table, with Ser Beornric on his right, and Ser Beatritz on King Colm’s left. Opposite the king, and frowning, sat Duke Wylyn, flanked by his wizard, Sifwyn.

  She was a slight woman, but looked even smaller at that table.

  Sers Vria and Temat stood by the door, flanked by two Knights of the Crown. A third Knight of the Crown, naked longsword in her hand, stood behind Wylyn and his wizard.

  No others were allowed in the room.

  Wylyn and his wizard did look as though they’d been called here in a hurry. Neither had bathed recently, though that showed more in the limpness of their hair and their slight stench than any visible dirt.

  Their state of their appearance had to be a message, though. Aefric didn’t doubt that, back during her apprenticeship, Sifwyn had worked out a spell to handle rapid personal cleaning.

  Every other wizard he’d met had done so.

  Wylyn wore his leathers, with those wicked daggers of his at his belt. Sifwyn wore her favored bright red robes, sewn through with crystals of different colors and shapes. Her long black hair, missing its usual luster, was braided and wound down tight to her scalp.

  Her greenwood staff leaned against the table beside her. Mirroring the position of the Brighstaff, which stood beside Aefric’s chair.

  Aefric noted that Sifwyn had added a fifth enchanted crystal to her robes, to accompany her magic opal ring, and the bracer on her left arm.

  The food served them for lunch was well spiced, and excellent as always. Aefric was sure of it. The cooks would never have provided less, especially with his majesty dining here.

  Though to be truthful, Aefric hardly noticed the taste of his food while they ate. And they all ate first, before coming to business, because the king insisted.

  The conversation to that point had been stilted. Of weather and the seas, travel along the Kingsroad. Nothing of consequence.

  But now the food was finished. And Aefric had cast the wizard’s valet to keep everyone’s tankards full without the need for a servant’s presence.

  The king began the conversation.

  “Wylyn,” he said gently. “Obviously I haven’t called you here to discuss travel. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  Wylyn frowned at Aefric.

  “I’m not sure what your majesty has been told,” Wylyn said sharply, “but I hate slavers as much as any in this room. I only just found out they’ve ever docked at Redport. And I’ve taken steps to put a stop to any hopes they have of doing business in my duchy.”

  “No one has tainted your name with accusations of slavery,” King Colm said gently. “In fact, I would like to hear more about the steps you’ve taken. Later. But I have not asked you here to discuss Redport, or slavery.”

  Did Sifwyn’s eyes narrow slightly?

  “Then I confess,” Wylyn said with a shrug. “I’m at a loss to know what your majesty refers to.”

  “You are certain?” King Colm said, his voice still gentle. Though now it held an edge of disappointment. “You can think of nothing I should know about?”

  “Your majesty,” Wylyn said with a sigh. “I can think of nothing. Though perhaps this is because Aefric here turned my focus to Redport and slavery? I’ve had little else on my mind for the last aett.”

  King Colm turned to Aefric. “Your grace?”

  “Wylyn, before I came to visit you, I made an expedition into the Dragonscar.”

  Yes. Sifwyn’s eyes definitely narrowed a touch that time, before she caught herself and schooled her expression. Aefric adjusted his grip on the wand Garram, held under the table and pointed at her.