“It came to me because those lands were granted me by my king—part of my domain.” Arcolin skipped over everything about dragonspawn, gnomes, treachery. “And in return it granted me a boon. I asked its aid for one of my sergeants, who had been blinded in an attack by a—” He thought how to say it. Samdal would know nothing of Verrakaien—he hoped. “A demon,” he said finally. He could see the questions clustering in Samdal’s gaze and hurried on. “It was then it asked me to touch tongues with it, and I did.”

“Have you seen it since?”

“Once,” Arcolin said. “It came with word my sergeant wanted to retire, and it said it had found him a good place. It said nothing, either time, about my being heir to Horngard’s throne, or Horngard’s need of me, or that our bond related to that bond.” As Samdal opened his mouth to speak, Arcolin held up his hand to forestall him. “What we know of dragons—what our legends say of dragons—whether this was the same dragon you saw or not—it would have known, it would have told me, if it had been Dragon’s Will that I return to Horngard.” He realized, in that moment, a vanished hope hidden deep in his heart when the dragon revealed itself, that it had indeed come with such purpose, but he had not allowed himself to be aware of it then.

And that—that alone—meant he lacked the kingliness he had once believed lay in himself. “And I know it touched tongue with others,” he told Samdal. “With the king of Lyonya and his queen, with my king, Mikeli of Tsaia, and his younger brother, the prince.” The prince … Camwyn … that thought flared in his mind. Was that just a coincidence? Or could it mean something more? Where had the Mahieran family come from when they came from the south?

“But you—my lord, you are heir to a throne yourself; your king will surely release you, when he knows that. Did he not release your former duke? Then he will release you. You are our king. You must be.”

“Should one who takes oaths be one who breaks them? Can an oathbreaker hold oaths and give fealty back where it is given him? I tell you plainly, Samdal, I am not your king. There is a reason the gods placed me where they did.” Samdal’s hot eyes did not change expression. Arcolin went on. “This is not resentment, Samdal; this is not anger or pride. It is the truth of who I am: I am a soldier. That is all. I serve my king here, as I serve him in the north; my troops and my body will stand between any southern menace and Tsaia in the north. I will not break my oath, or ask for it to be released.”

“But you must—there is no other—”