The tent flap opened suddenly, and every eye turned to it, but the man who stepped in wasn’t Lantano Garuwashi. It was a dark-haired, dark-eyed Alitaeran with a waxed mustache and an eagle sigil on his cloak pin. A Marcus then, from one of Alitaera’s most important families, and certainly the leader of the two thousand Alitaeran lancers who’d arrived with the last of the magae this afternoon.

“I didn’t realize this council had anything to do with the Alitaeran military,” Lord General Agon Brant said. Clearly there was some bad blood there.

“This council decides if we’ve got an extra twenty thousand sa’ceurai or if we lose the six thousand we’ve got. I’d say that makes it a council of war. I’m Tiberius Antonius Marcus, Praetor, Fourth Army, Second Maniple. We’re to defend the Chantry. Sisters, Your Majesty.” He nodded to them.

“An honor, Praetor, please join us,” Logan said.

Before the man sat, the flap opened again and Lantano Garuwashi strode in. He rested his hand over the pommel of his sword and walked to his seat and sat before acknowledging anyone.

“Well, everyone’s here now except the Ceuran Regent himself, and of course, the dear Lae’knaught Overlord, who I suppose will walk in half an hour late and ask that we repeat everything,” Lord General Brant said.

“I suppose he will,” Logan said. “Since I told him this council wouldn’t meet for another half an hour.”

There were some snickers, but Feir breathed easier. A Lae’knaught overlord would likely have all sorts of magic-dampening paraphernalia that would spoil a perfectly good illusion.

What little chatter had been going around the room soon died as the sound of thousands of marching feet approached the tent. All twenty thousand sa’ceurai were coming.

This could get ugly.

The tent flap opened and a teenage boy and a middle-aged man with a fringe of auburn hair around an oiled pate stepped in. The middle-aged man had four locks of hair bound to his, all of them Ceuran, all of them old. He stood aside to make way for the boy, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen. The boy had fiery orange hair, cropped close to his skull, and a single, very long lock bound into his hair. He wore ornately embroidered blue silk robes and a ruby-encrusted sword.

Feir had the insane thought of breaking off the biggest ruby and using it for his fraud.

“Sisters, Lords, Praetor, Your Majesty,” the middle-aged Ceuran said, “may I introduce Sa’sa’ceurai Hideo Mitsurugi, sixth Regent Hideo, Lord of Mount Tenji, Protector of the Holy Honor, Keeper of the High Seat, Lord General of the Held Armies of Ceura.”