“It’s my gut,” Magnus said. “I know it. I just can’t figure out how I know it.” He lifted a hand and pushed white hair back from his eyes. “It’s possible I’m going senile, I suppose.” He peered at Tavi suddenly. “How long have you known about Sextus?”

“Since a few days after we escaped Canea,” Tavi said quietly.

“And you said nothing.”

Tavi shrugged. “What would it have changed except to frighten everyone and make us appear more vulnerable to the Canim?” He shook his head. “Everyone sitting on slow ships with nothing to do but chew on bad thoughts—we’d have had blood on the decks in a week. This way, by the time word gets around, we’ll be in the middle of operations. Everyone will have work to turn his hand to.”

Magnus sighed. “Yes. I suppose it was necessary to keep it quiet.” He shook his head, his eyes gleaming faintly for a moment. “But please, Your Highness. Don’t make a habit of such things. My heart can only take so much.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Tavi said. He nodded to Magnus and turned back toward his desk. “Oh, Maestro.”

“Hmm?”

Tavi looked up from a weary slump on his chair. “Valiar Marcus has saved my life. And I, his. I can’t imagine that he would ever turn against the Legion. Or against me.”

Magnus was silent for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “That’s what everyone always thinks about traitors, lad. It’s why we hate them so.”

The old man left the cabin.

Aquitainus Attis, the man who had been striving to take the Crown of Alera for most of his lifetime, was now only a heartbeat away from taking it incontestably. Could there be one more knife lurking, awaiting the right moment to strike?

Tavi closed his eyes. He felt fragile. He felt frightened.

Then he rose abruptly, stalked across the room, and began donning his armor, a suit taken from a legionare who had perished of his wounds after the evacuation to replace the one he’d lost in the harbor city of Molvar. The familiar weight of Aleran lorica settled upon him, cold and solid. He slung his sword at his hip and felt the cold power of the steel singing quietly down the length of the blade.

There was work to be done.

Best be about it.

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 3

“Keep your back straight,” Amara called. “Turn your heels out a little more!”

“Why?” called the girl on the pony. She was riding in the practice ring the small detachment of Garrison’s cavalry troopers had set up. It was, in essence, a four-foot-deep pit lined with soft earth, about two hundred yards long and half that across.

“It will help you maintain your balance,” Amara called from the side of the pit.

“My balance is good already!” the girl insisted.