“I must go back,” Elis said in a small voice. “I must go back, mustn’t I? To save the kingdoms. To save …” Her voice faltered. “To save the king’s life.”

“No,” Kieri said. “If you went back, they would not believe what you said. Your father told me so. They want you back, but only to lock you up. That is a waste of any young life, let alone that of a princess of Pargun.”

“But then he—”

“Be still, recruit,” the Knight-Commander said, but not roughly. “You are not yet in command.” Her cheeks flushed, but she said nothing. To Kieri, he said, “You have a plan?”

“I have a thought to lay before you,” Kieri said. “Early this morning we two kings met and laid out every possibility we could think of. We may have missed something, but we think we have a way to have peace, with a king we know on the throne of Pargun, and Elis of Pargun safe and unmarried.”

“A great ending, if such is possible,” the Knight-Commander said.

“It will need your cooperation, and Elis’s, if it is possible at all,” Kieri said. “And Pargun may yet flare into war, for the king now understands that Achrya held her own aims, not the welfare of Pargun, uppermost. His brother, surely, is deep in her toils, committed to her service, and yet I believe these men—this king and many others—to be honorable at root, only mazed.”

“You never thought that before,” the Knight-Commander said, with a wry twist of the mouth.

“True, I did not,” Kieri said. “I thought them bad men and enemies, as they thought me. A year ago—no, even last winter—I saw nothing but enemies to the east, where Pargun lay, and they, looking west, saw the same. And where did that get us all? Endless war, hot or cold. And all blinded by fear and anger, so evil—whether Achrya or another—could intrude.”

“You sound like an elf,” the Knight-Commander said.

“I am by half,” Kieri said, shrugging. “But elf or human, I know that peace is better for the people and the land than constant war. It does not, as we have discussed before, mean unreadiness for war should it come.”

“Well,” the Knight-Commander said, leaning forward. “What is this thought?”

Together, Kieri and the king of Pargun laid out their idea, scarcely a plan as yet. Kieri made sure the Pargunese king spoke as much as he wished, that it was clear to Elis and the Knight-Commander that he was under no duress other than the reality of their mutual danger.

“Elis is of the royal house; she is nominally under the king’s command at all times.”

This time Elis merely looked at the Knight-Commander, not even opening her mouth; he shook his head.

“If we have peace, I need an ambassador at both this court and the court of Tsaia,” the king said. “We have always used members of the royal family; as Elis knows, I sent my wife’s sister here for the king’s coronation. For the last coronation, one of my brothers; I have heard here that he made a fool of himself on southern wine.”