He had been expecting it for months, with a feeling of heavy dread and sick anticipation that put him off his food and kept him staring at the ceiling at night. All winter he’d worried and wondered. Were the Tedrels going to break with their pattern and attack in the winter? After that strange evening when Geri briefly spoke for—Something Else—how could he not have felt that the storm was about to break?

He’d wished for an inkling that he was doing the right thing—and he’d gotten it. Nothing inimical could have used Geri as a mouthpiece, not a Sunpriest, and not inside the sacred confines of the temple. Everything in the temple was sacred, no matter how homely it seemed. Vkandis was the Lord of All, from the Sun-fire to the hearth-fire, and he did not scorn the small and commonplace. So even if what had spoken through Geri was not Vkandis Himself, it was certainly some spirit that was doing so on behalf of the Sunlord.

Be careful what you ask for. Well, now he had it, and now he knew, well in advance of everyone else, that Sendar and Selenay would go into combat, no matter who tried to stop them. Now he knew… and didn’t dare tell anyone.

Now he knew but didn’t know when. He only knew it would be soon. But how soon? Every night he went to sleep on edge, and every morning he woke with the feeling that a storm was coming. And certainly this was what everyone, including the now-successful agents, had been working toward, all this time—to lure the Tedrels into thinking that the Valdemaran defenses were a hollow shell, and a single concerted drive would crack through. And thanks to the four that he had planted, when that time came, Valdemar would know as soon as the Karsite troops themselves did. They would know days, weeks earlier than they would have before his four demi-Karsites got planted successfully on the other side of the Border.

Yes, he was expecting it. But when the word came, it still hit him like a blow to the gut.

It was Talamir who delivered the blow; that didn’t make it better, but at least it was from the hand of a friend and delivered as calmly as that worthy could manage.