“—your sainted mother and your kind father took me in and treated me like their own. They never allowed anyone to shame me for what I was. Your father knighted me in secret, did you know that? When you knighted me, it was actually for the second time. When we came home because he was dying, he took me aside, and told me that if I wanted to stay at Valdemar, he’d order you to make me your Seneschal, but if I wanted to be on my own, he’d make a provision in his will to have the income from one of the manor farms and three of the Chargers, so I could go take up arms anywhere I cared to, or I could settle down with someone of my choice. And he said someone, not ‘a lady.’ So . . . you know, he knew.”

“He told me.”

“Well, I never knew for certain if he had or not.” Hakkon picked up the apple again, and started slicing bits off, eating them carefully. “We’re family, Kordas. You’re my brother. You’ve never treated me as anything less, not even when we were at the Court and you could have ingratiated yourself with those entitled brats and used me as your pet attack-dog.” He cracked a crooked smile. “Besides, this means that these days you get to stand between me and Imperial trouble. I call that fair.”

“Good point.” He finished the last oatcake and waved off the page offering more. “If you’re done murdering that apple with a thousand cuts, want to climb Jonaton’s tower with me?”

“But of course.” Hakkon got up first, but Kordas wasn’t far behind him. It was going to be a very long walk. Jonaton had his lair in the very top of the tallest of the Valdemar manor towers. And only those who were close enough to the Emperor’s favor were permitted the smaller, local Portals that would enable them to walk from the ground floor into the top of a tower.

There were three other mages in this tower, but Jonaton was the most powerful and had seniority, and got the set of rooms with the best view. That also meant there were two other mages between him and trouble, should trouble decide to come looking for him. He had been the first mage that Kordas had ever met as a child just out of the nursery, and he vividly recalled running into the man in a hallway and being startled half out of his wits by the apparition that had blown by him in a flurry of ruffle and lace-trimmed, embroidered robes all in colors that had never been found in nature.