The kings of Wester, Nander, and Estill—they were the source of most of the trouble. They were cast from the same hotheaded mold, all ambitious, all envious. All thoughtless and heartless and inconstant. King Birn of Wester and King Drowden of Nander might form an alliance and pummel Estill’s army on the northern borders, but Wester and Nander could never work together for long. Suddenly one would offend the other, and Wester and Nander would become enemies again, and Estill would join Nander to pound Wester.

And the kings were no better to their own people than they were to each other’s. Katsa remembered the farmers of Estill that she and Oll had lifted secretly from their makeshift prison in a cowshed weeks before. Estillan farmers who could not pay the tithe to their king, Thigpen, because Thigpen’s army had trampled their fields on its way to raid a Nanderan village. Thigpen should have been the one to pay the farmers; even Randa would have conceded this, had his own army done the damage. But Thigpen intended to hang the farmers for nonpayment of the tithe. Yes, Birn, Drowden, and Thigpen kept the Council busy.

It had not always been like this. Wester, Nander, Estill, Sunder, and the Middluns—the five inner kingdoms—had once known how to coexist peacefully. Centuries back they had all been of the same family, ruled by three brothers and two sisters who had managed to negotiate their jealousies without resorting to war. But any acknowledgment of that old family bond was long gone now. The kingdoms’ people were at the mercy of the natures of those who rose to be their rulers. It was a gamble, and the current generation did not make for a winning hand.

The seventh kingdom was Monsea. The mountains set Monsea apart from the others, as the ocean did for Lienid. Leck, King of Monsea, was married to Ashen, the sister of King Ror of Lienid. Leck and Ror shared a dislike for the squabbles of the other kingdoms. But this didn’t forge an alliance, for Monsea and Lienid were too far removed from each other, too independent, too uninterested in the doings of the other kingdoms.

Not much was known about the Monsean court. King Leck was well liked by his people and had a great reputation for kindness to children, animals, and all helpless creatures. The Monsean queen was a gentle woman. Word was she’d stopped eating the day she’d heard of the Lienid grandfather’s disappearance. For of course, the father of the Lienid king was her father as well.

It had to be Wester or Nander or Estill who had kidnapped the Lienid grandfather. Katsa could think of no other possibility, unless Lienid itself was involved. A notion that might seem ridiculous, if it hadn’t been for the Lienid man in Murgon’s courtyard. His jewelry had been rich: He was a noble of some sort. And any guest of Murgon’s warranted suspicion.

But Katsa didn’t feel he was involved. She couldn’t explain it, but it was what she felt.