“Unless he’s holding something back,” Isana said, primarily to plant doubt in the Queen’s mind.

The Queen smiled. “Always a possibility.”

Isana chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then asked, “May I see him?”

“If you wish.”

Isana rose carefully. Her dress was beginning to smell almost as untidy as it looked. No, she decided. She was beginning to smell almost as bad as the dress looked. Her hair must look a fright. How many days had it been since she had bathed or changed clothes? There was no way for her to tell.

As she approached the pool, she saw a ghostly image appear deep within it, one that grew brighter and clearer as she drew closer to the Queen. It showed a large field of fallen stones and ruined buildings. There were warrior-vord corpses all over it. The Queen waved a hand, and suddenly the vord sprang back to life and were surrounded by the blurred form of legionares. An instant later, the wall rose up again, colored oddly green, then a slender young man stood before the city gates of Riva.

“This is what he did no more than an hour ago,” the Queen murmured. “The image becomes too indistinct to be useful as his Legion closes to battle. These events transpired just prior.”

Isana watched in awe as her son, tall and proud, tested his will against the furycrafted fortress and reduced it to rubble. She watched as the enemy came forth to kill him and found only death instead. She watched as the Legions marched up to the city and hammered into the vord. She watched her son cast his defiance into the teeth of the enemy who had all but destroyed Alera—and emerge victorious. Her heart pounded hard with terrified pride, with worry, with hopeful anxiety.

Her child. Septimus’s child.

“If only you could see him, my lord,” Isana whispered, closing her eyes against sudden tears.

“Was it difficult?” the Queen asked a moment later.

Isana willed her tears away with a simple watercrafting and opened her eyes again. “Was what difficult?”

“Rearing the child without the aid of your mate.”

“At times,” Isana said. “I had help. My brother. The other folk at his steadholt.”

The Queen looked up from the foggy haze that had enveloped the pool’s image. “It is a collective effort, then.”

“It can be,” Isana said. “Was it difficult for you?”

The Queen tilted her head inquisitively.

“Bringing forth this horde without the aid of subordinate queens,” Isana clarified.

“Yes.”

“Would it not make it easier to use your warriors effectively if you had the help of more queens?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you have not created more.”

The Queen turned her young-seeming face back to the pool, troubled. “I have tried,” she said.

“But you cannot?”

“I can create them.” The Queen’s face became puzzled, wounded. It was a child’s expression. “They all try to kill me.”

“Why?” Isana asked.