“Found it by accident. I had a horrible toothache and I’d packed my mouth with clevis oil pads. I tried to say ‘Healer, Dental, Medication Room’ and ended up here. Look there, and there, and there.” Merrin pointed, and Kordas clearly made out anti-scrying runes among the patterns. Merrin pushed his rapier out of the way, plopped himself down on a cushion, and with a gesture invited Kordas to do the same. “Nobody ever comes here. There is no one in the entire Palace who is self-aware enough to meditate.”

Kordas choked on the laugh that the statement startled out of him. This . . . didn’t sound much like the “idiot” who had been spying so ineptly on him!

“Kordas, I’m on your side. I have been since the Emperor acknowledged my title and directed me to spy on you.” Merrin looked sincere, and Star kept nodding. Kordas hardly knew where to look. “I—I was never a hostage, but Father took me with him on his yearly journeys here, then on journeys into other Duchies, ones that were ruled by the Emperor’s lickspittles, and took care to point out all the ways in which life was miserable there as well as in the Capital. When I was dazzled by luxury, he showed me the cost of that luxury. Then, when I inherited, and I came every year to the Regatta in his place, I saw even more personally what a hellhole the Emperor and his vanities, vagaries, and endless wars were making of the entire Empire. But Valdemar . . .” He shook his head. “Valdemar is not ‘beautiful,’ in the Imperial sense. It isn’t paved with Imperial ‘largesse,’ or trying to gain more attention from the Emperor. But the peace of the place, the compassionate way it’s run, the care you take for your people, your land, and your beasts before you even begin to think of yourself, make it a place of peace and quiet beauty. And when I took Father’s position and was invited to ‘keep an eye on you,’ I knew I had to do my best to support you, or all of that would be wiped away in the blink of an eye.”

Kordas felt astonished. He glanced at Star in complete disbelief. Star nodded.