Invidia turned and stormed from the hive. Isana heard a roaring windstream bear her away—leaving her in the hive alone. Except, of course, for perhaps a hundred wax spiders, most of them motionless but not asleep. If she moved toward the exit, they would swarm her.

Isana smoothed her skirts again and sat calmly.

Waiting.

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 41

Fidelias had watched Crassus run the Legions and manage the Canim in the retaking of Riva while Octavian rested from the rather spectacular display of furycrafting he’d put on. Fidelias was impressed with the young Antillan lord. He’d expected Crassus to behave quite a bit differently when he was the one in command. He’d expected someone much more like... well, like Maximus, from the heir of Antillus Raucus. Crassus had, it would seem, inherited the best traits of his mother’s bloodline, House of Kalarus: cool logic, intelligence, and polish, seemingly without being infected with the megalomaniacal self-obsession in which most of those petty-minded monsters had reveled.

Granted, Crassus’s levelheaded style wasn’t necessarily a perfect one where the Canim were concerned. An officer of their corps, a young Shuaran, had dropped a challenge to Crassus’s authority within hours, at which point his elder half brother Maximus had promptly brought one of Raucus’s strengths of character to the forefront—the ability to make a decisive and unmistakable statement.

When the Cane went for Crassus’s throat, Maximus threw him through a building.

It was a rather absolute form of diplomacy though Fidelias could only assume that Octavian had rubbed off on Maximus to some degree: It had been a wooden building rather than a stone one. The Cane in question was expected to recover from his injuries—eventually. Varg had denied the uppity Cane the services of Aleran healers, which Crassus had promptly offered.

Fidelias’s grasp of Canim was still fairly rough, but Varg’s comment had amounted to something like, “Your stupidity will get fewer good warriors killed if you have time to reflect on today’s mistake before leading them.”

Octavian dropped his head back at Fidelias’s recounting and laughed. His voice came out sounding a little flat within the privacy windcrafting he had woven around them. “One-eared Shuaran pack leader? Tarsh?”

“Aye, Your Highness, the same.”

Octavian nodded. The two of them were walking the perimeter of the camp’s defenses as the sunset closed, after another day of hard marching, inspecting the work of the Legions and the warriors. “Maximus has wanted to have an excuse to take a swing at Tarsh ever since we met him in Molvar. And I can’t imagine that Varg would be sorry about being given a reason not to place anyone under Tarsh’s command.” Octavian nodded. “What of the survivors from Riva?”