She bent her head and turned away. “Tomorrow?” she said.

“Yes, tomorrow. I will send for you when all is prepared.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Kieri found the Kuakkgani in the rose garden, humming with the bees. Pearwind, he saw, was having a lesson in controlling the flow of springtide, letting her staff leaf out and then restraining it. Kieri found the sight disturbing. They stood up when Kieri appeared, but he waved them back to their seats and sat down on a bench himself.

“You have told the others what I told you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Elmholt said. “And we have learned a little that may help you.”

“You were correct that treachery was done there,” Larchwind said. “The oldest bones in the ossuary itself had no memory of it, but the roots we could feel beyond the ossuary did … and elves had a part in that treachery. They raised the mound to hide all evidence: underneath is a place sacred to old humans, who lived there before the magelords came from the south. The Oathstone was theirs first. Against elven magery they had no power but endurance, even in death.”

“What must I do?” Kieri asked. “Do they desire my death?”

“No, sir king. They desire to be restored to their rightful place. We do not know how you will accomplish that, but we know it should be done at Midsummer. Perhaps the usual rites there, without the Lady present, will be sufficient.”

“The rites … I do not know all the rites without her,” Kieri said. “She and I sang together.”

“And the power of her singing and the elvenhome silenced them. Without her, they may be able to speak to you.”

“I will do what I can,” Kieri said.

“No one can do more,” Elmholt said. “We will stay another few days, if it please you, to be sure your Squire continues to mend.”

“You are welcome,” Kieri said.

In the palace, the work of cleaning his study continued; furniture not damaged by iynisin touch or blood had been moved to another room; the carpet was gone, and Kieri met servants carrying away buckets of water from cleaning every speck of blood from walls and floor. The floor, patterned in squares of green and gray stone, with a central design of more colors in a complicated interlacing pattern, had been impervious to iynisin blood that leaked through the carpet. Kieri looked at the design he’d never seen, since it had been covered by carpet. It teased his gaze, almost as if it moved, forcing his eye to follow.

Elven, no doubt. Annoying, in the way it compelled the gaze; no wonder someone had chosen to cover it with a carpet. He turned to his Squires—this day, Jostin and Harin. “Do either of you know what this pattern is? Some symbol sacred to elves, maybe?”

“No, sir king,” Harin said. “I have no elven blood. Maybe one of the part-elves would know.”