What had gone wrong? How could he have changed so? What had she done to make him turn away from her?

She had no answers for any of this, and she waited, fruitlessly, in her cold, lonely bed, until at last she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Alberich contemplated the glass image of the Sunlord—defined at the moment by the lines of leading rather than the colors of the glass—and tried to think of all of the possible paths that the Prince might take after this afternoon.

The most obvious, of course, was the most direct; wait until the baby was born, and engineer an “accident” that would kill or incapacitate Selenay. There was no law in Valdemar that the Regent had to be a Herald; as Regent, it was even possible that he would have the same power as the Monarch, just without the title.

But that was only one of a number of courses he could take—

:Chosen, the Royal Guard Kimel is coming down the path,: Kantor warned, breaking into his train of thought. :I can’t imagine he’d be coming to see anyone but you at this time of night.:

Forewarned, Alberich got up to meet the young man as soon as he entered the salle, greeting him at the door. But it wasn’t until he got to Alberich’s private quarters that the Herald could see his expression, and it was both grim and troubled.

“Master Alberich,” the young man said, when he’d taken the proffered seat and been offered, and refused, any refreshment. “I overheard a conversation this evening that—that I do not much like.”

“Did you?” Alberich replied noncommittally.

The Guard nodded. “It was during the hour of dinner for the Court. I was on duty when I heard two voices raised in argument on the other side of the wall where I was standing—I happened to be in the gardens, and there was an open window right above my head.”

“Assume, I must, that you overheard something that might of importance be?” Alberich prompted.

“Two men arguing,” Kimel replied. “And one of them was the Prince.” He coughed. “I knew about what happened this afternoon, and I guess he’d gone to someone to complain about it.” He frowned as he concentrated on what he was going to say. “I didn’t recognize the voice, but he got not much sympathy. In fact, the person he was talking to gave him a regular dressing-down about it. The man said that the Prince was on the verge of ‘spoiling it all,’ though he didn’t say what ‘it’ was.”

“Go on,” Alberich told him. Surely there was more to this story!