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—

In the night, Lin slept, and as she slept, she dreamed that she was someone else. A man, climbing the high side of a mountain.

The paths had long ago fallen away, and now there was only rock, cracked and uneven. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he kept on, moving ever upward, for he was acting on the orders of the King, and to return empty-handed would mean death.

He was nearly at the summit when he found the entrance to the cave. He breathed a sigh of relief. The prophecy had not been false. On hands and knees he crawled into the dark crevice, dust and gravel irritating his bleeding hands.

He did not know how long he had been crawling when he saw it. Gold, all gold, and of a brightness that seared into his eyes. He cried out in Malgasi: “Hi nas visík!” And knew in that moment that he was blind, that he would never see anything again save that light, that radiance, and he did not grieve his sight, only reached out his hands toward the burning…

—

It was morning when Kel came back to the royal apartment. After Lilibet ordered him away, he had gone into the small blue room down the hall where he slept sometimes when Conor was with a girl, though the girls never stayed the night.

He had tried to force sleep to come. He visualized his peaceful place: the ship on the sea, the mast swaying in lazy, sunlit wind, white foam on the water below. But this time it had not calmed him. He had continued to see, over and over, the whip rising and falling, the blood oozing from Conor’s back. Conor shuddering without making a sound.

Eventually, he had fallen into a black and dreamless sleep, only waking when sunlight was spilling through the east-facing window, turning the airless room into a roasting oven.

Conor.He was on his feet and out in the corridor before he’d shaken the sleep from his brain.

He’d half expected Lilibet to be there, but the hall was deserted, ghostly. He crossed it quickly and entered the room he shared with Conor. The light here was softer, laying a pale gold glaze over the odd tableau that met his gaze.

Lin was asleep in the chair beside Conor’s bed, her arms hugging her satchel like a child with its arms around a pillow. Conor’s bed was empty, a mess of tangled sheets, mud and blood. It glittered as if dusted with sequins. As Kel approached, incredulous, he saw that the shining spangles were Ashkari healing talismans, scattered across the coverlet.

“Lin.” He shook her shoulder and she bolted awake, the satchel slipping out of her hands. He caught it before it hit the floor, tossing it onto the bed. “Where’s Conor?”

She scrubbed at her eyes, blinking. A great deal of her red hair had escaped from its braids and curled in a halo of fiery strands around her face. “The Prince?” She stared at the empty bed. “He was here—at dawn, he was here, I looked—” She said something else, a blur of words in Ashkar, her face creasing with worry.

The door of the tepidarium opened then, and Conor came into the room.

He was barefoot and shirtless, a towel over his shoulders. Loose linen trousers were cinched at his hips. He had clearly washed, for his hair was damp, and his face clean of blood and kohl.

“Conor,” Kel said. He was furious—at Conor, for not treating his injuries as serious. At Lin, unreasonably, for falling asleep. And behind the fury, beneath it, was puzzlement. He had seen Conor’s wounds; how had Conor managed to get out of bed, much less walk across the room at all? “What are you doing? You should be—”

Conor put a finger to his lips, as if to say,Hush.There was a glint in his eyes, almost mischievous. Kel and Lin exchanged a baffled glance. Lin looked as if she were about to jump out of her skin.There was real fear in her eyes, and worry; it moved Kel’s own anxiety up a notch.

“Prince Conor,” Lin began, her voice shaking slightly, and Conor drew the towel from his neck and turned around, presenting his back to them. Kel heard Lin give a little gasp; her hand flew to her chest, just above her heart.

Conor’s back was a broad, smooth unblemished expanse of skin stretched over flexible muscle. No mark remained there, not even a healed scar. There was no sign of any wound. No sign he had ever been whipped at all.

And in that moment of the Queen’s great despair, her magic seemed to falter. She could no longer hold back the armies on the plains. The walls began to splinter, and as the enemies of Aram poured through, the city began to burn. All was flame: the sky, the rivers and lands of Aram, the palace itself. Soon Aram would be only ashes.

She turned to Suleman. “You have left me no choice,” she said.

Flame burned in his eyes. “What can you do to me? I will always be more powerful than you, as long as there is magic.”

“But now,” Adassa said, “there will be no more magic.”

And she reached out with all the strength that had been gifted her by her people, with the power of each word they had sacrificed in her name. She reached beyond the stars, and she tore free the Great Word of Power, without which no spell could be cast, and she cast it into the void. And she herself followed it into the void, for the power of the Word was so great, it burned away all about her that was mortal. The Queen was no longer the Queen; she was magic itself, and magic was gone.

—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings,Laocantus Aurus Iovit III

It was the day of the Sarthian Princess’s arrival in Castellane, and Kel wished he had not been seated among the Charter Families. Their chairs had been ranged upon a raised platform in the middle of Valerian Square, and he could not help but feel that everyone who had gathered to see the Princess arrive was staring at them curiously: from Montfaucon, resplendent in a yellow brocade doublet with vertical stripes of black silk, to Charlon and his father, both glowering in fury, to Gremont: richly dressed but asleep as usual, and snoring at the sky.

Falconet, seated next to Kel, wore dark-blue velvet and a pleased expression. Kel recalled Polidor Sardou’s words during the last Dial Chamber meeting he’d attended. It seemed long ago now.Joss, your sister is married to a Sarthian duke. You are not objective in this matter. An alliance with Sarthe would likely benefit your family.

As always happened with Falconet, beneficial things seemed to simply fall into his lap. He waved languidly at the crowd in the square, clearly not bothered by the attention, before turning to Kel. “And how is our mutual friend, the Prince?” he murmured. “I have heard little from Conor since news broke of his felicitous engagement. But then, it has not been long, has it?”

Falconet’s expression was blandly curious, but mischief lurked in his eyes. Kel did not believe it was amalicioussort of mischief, but it was clear Falconet found the situation slightly amusing, as he found so many things.