“She is imprisoned?”

“Only by her honor,” Kieri said. “Should she wish to withdraw and return home, she would be provided an escort to the river. And the Knight-Commander, seeing it is a matter of royal concern, may well bring her here and order her to see you. If she does not obey, she will lose her place. Falk’s Hall—like the other knightly training orders—is used to difficult sons and daughters of noble families.”

“Then she might actually learn discipline?”

“She will, or she will not gain her ruby,” Kieri said.

“And you?” The king seemed to be looking for that ruby.

“My ruby is still in the cabinet in the Knight-Commander’s office, in a little box with my name on it, should I give my oath to Falk.”

“You are strange,” the king said. “You are not what I thought.”

“Nor are you,” Kieri said. “But it has grown late as we talked. Let us sup a little, and sleep, and in the morning consider what is best for both our kingdoms.”

“And where shall I sleep?” the king asked, a little of his earlier suspicion returning.

“Not in my bed,” Kieri said. “But if you will, in the same room where your daughter stayed when she was here.”

“Locked in?”

“Watched, if you come out,” Kieri said. “Have you no guards in your own palace in Rostvok?”

The king nodded.

The Knight-Commander, in Falk’s red and white, sat with Elis at one end of the table; Kieri and the king of Pargun sat at the other. Kieri’s sword lay athwart the table, a reminder whose domain it was, in case emotion overpowered reason. Elis, in the leaf-brown uniform of Falk’s Hall for first-year students, sat bolt upright, pale, lips compressed. She was here by the Knight-Commander’s orders, as Kieri knew, and she did not look at her father.

Her father scarce looked at anything else in the room but her. Kieri tapped the table to get his attention. “We are met to discuss grave matters of state,” he said. “Pargun is in disarray, and that disarray threatens to spill over its borders, the king tells me. Knight-Commander, I believe you have not met the king of Pargun: I present him to you. And to you, Sir King—” The title felt strange in his mouth, but it must be given. “—I present the Knight-Commander of Falk, he who commands in Falk’s Hall, where Knights of Falk are trained.”

The two men acknowledged each other with a seated bow. The Knight-Commander spoke. “I have brought Elis of Pargun as you requested, my lord king. As a student in Falk’s Hall, she cannot travel alone, and she wishes to remain there until she has earned her ruby. As her guardian while she is under my command, I must ask if you intend to withdraw your support of her candidacy.”

“No,” Kieri said. “I support her still.”

“Then it was not to send her home you had her brought here?”