“My son, Nurgya, had been stolen from my home, the nurse who cared for him brutally murdered. The kidnapper instructed me to steal the horn from the palace, which I did. Then I was told I also must kill the emperor in exchange for my son’s life. But it wasn’t until I saw Nyphron about to kill his son, my beloved Nolyn, that I let the arrow fly. Only . . .”

“Only what?”

“Only it was all a lie. It wasn’t Nolyn that Nyphron was about to kill. My son was safe. And it wasn’t the horn that I stole. I damned my eternal soul for nothing. And now I will never be able to tell Nyphron or my mother how horribly sorry I am.”

Kile returned with stale crackers, cheese, and weak wine that he set on the table beside The Book of Brin. Farilane promptly picked up the book and glared at him, as if Kile had set a rabid dog beside an infant. Then she turned to the empress dowager, softened her countenance, and asked, “Who was it that kidnapped your son?”

Sephryn laid her hand on Bran’s letter as if it were the hand of a dead friend. “Bran was right, but the letter was far too late in reaching us. Mawyndulë, the son of the last fane—the ruler of the Fhrey—arranged the whole thing. It was Mawyndulë—using magic to make himself look like Nolyn—that I saw about to be killed by Nyphron. He was the one who took my son, tried to kill the real Nolyn, forced me to steal the horn, and he murdered my friend Seymour Destone.”

“Why?”

“Near the end of the Great War, Mawyndulë murdered his father in an attempt to assume the throne. In doing so, however, he broke the Law of Ferrol that prohibits Fhrey from killing Fhrey. As a result, he was banished from their society, making him ineligible to be fane and barring him from ever entering the afterlife paradise of Alysin. But then he blew the horn. It didn’t recognize that Mawyndulë had been banished. All it cared about was that Mawyndulë had Fhrey blood. If he had won the challenge against Nyphron, Ferrol would allow him to reenter Fhrey society and avoid punishment for his crimes due to an ambiguity in the law. Of course he lost that fight. But with Nyphron dead, he can challenge again. Assuming he can get his hands on the horn.”

“But you said it wasn’t the horn that you stole.”