So … a feint, but a strong one, against the western Guild League, to draw Fox Company in and keep them occupied defending the pass at Valdaire. A fleet—even now assembling at his orders—to sail around the Eastbight and up the Honnorgat. A force to pin Phelan in southern Lyonya, so that his force could invade on the river.

He reviewed his forces. No one knew where all his warriors came from; no one knew what ships dared thread the dangerous shoals outside Slavers’ Bay or what cargo unloaded or loaded there. Coastal caravans kept well inland from it, the caravan masters well paid to see nothing and tell less.

It can all be yours. That voice whispered to him night and day now: praise, warning, advice, promises. So far, in the years since he had accepted the gift, it had led him truly, if slower than he wished, from one triumph to another. He had not always understood its reasons—why, for instance, he had not been given leave to slay Kieri Phelan in Siniava’s War—but in the end Phelan’s reputation had protected him from others’ suspicions.

Why not, he wondered now, assassinate the young, inexperienced Fox Company captains while their commander was away? Why not kill all the mercenary commanders? If their troops were in disarray …

Not yet. That was clear enough, and he had learned not to disobey. For now you want the cities to think they can trust those companies.

What, then? Send spies to infiltrate them?

Patience. You are not as old as I.

No, but he would be. He had been promised that. Life beyond life, without aging. If not immortality as the elves knew it, still life far beyond other men. He would see the other kings die, and then … his vision blurred to the glory of it. Himself, in a radiant glow, crowned with the mightiest of all crowns, and all bowing before him.

No one would ever command him again.

Except me.

Who was part of himself now. That, he told himself, was different.

He bent his mind to the practicalities of war and issued orders. It had begun.

Cortes Andres

“My lord Count!”

Andressat looked up from his work. One of the scribes—Hastan—was waving a scroll as if it were a torch. What could he have found?

Hastan came nearer. “My lord, you know the rumors from the north—”

“Which rumors?”

“About the magelords in the mountain. The Girdish expedition found them, far to the west of Fin Panir.”

Andressat now had an idea where Fin Panir lay, west of Vérella. West of Fin Panir, in his imagination, was a vast empty wilderness … but then, he had once thought all the North a tiny place, kingdoms no bigger than Andressat, and the reality … had been different.

“What about the rumors, Hastan? And what are you holding there?”