“I’m sorry I never told you about the magery,” Dorrin said.

Kieri shook his head. “You weren’t using it; it wasn’t important then.”

“The Knight-Commander is most concerned that I not yield to a desire for vengeance—indeed he wishes me to use magery as little as I can, lest arrogance negate Falk’s support and open a gap into which the blood magery could penetrate.”

“This Knight-Commander has not seen war himself,” Kieri said. “You and I both know the dangers of uncontrolled anger, but we also know what war requires. And this is war you face, Dorrin: treason, rebellion, a civil war, at worst. My advice to you is to use whatever force you need at the beginning. You are not like to use it for your own glory.”

“I am of the same blood—I think he fears it will affect my judgment.”

“He has not seen you in battle. I have. Here—let’s talk of it as if it were a Company campaign. Tell me what you expect to find, what your plans are.”

Dorrin laid out the situation as she understood it, concise and crisp as all her briefings were. “And then there are the surprises—the things I can’t know ahead of time. I can’t know how many of the servants are complicit, for instance.”

Kieri nodded. “Of course, but you know to expect the unexpected. I agree with your assessment and your plan is sound. Dorrin, the prince is right—though this will take all your will and all your skill, as well as that magery you now have, no one else could do it. I believe you can. Trust yourself. I do.”

Kieri bade a final farewell to the cohort two days later, as Selfer led them out of Chaya, on the road to the river. No inspection this time—he was no longer their commander, and already their faces turned more naturally to Selfer than to him for orders. Selfer, his former squire, bowed instead of saluting.

“My lord king. It has been an honor to serve you these few years …”

“An honor you have well repaid,” Kieri said. “Go with Gird, Selfer, and Gird’s grace be with you.”

“Thank you, Sir King,” Selfer said, bowing again. Then he mounted and rode to the head of the column, and the familiar commands started them on their way. Away. Forever.

Kieri pushed that thought aside, and went back to work. The more he learned of the long breach between elves and humans, the more concerned he was that this might be a primary cause of Lyonya’s economic decline.

Within the human community, those of part-elven blood most often sided with elves and accepted elven values. Here were the strongest opponents to his proposals for an effective military, the strongest proponents of isolation. They were, in general, content to see Lyonya stay as it was, or return to an imagined ideal past: a forest land of peaceful folk who had no quarrels, no wars, no “foreign luxuries.” A land where, as one put it, “We used to sit around the fire and sing, and the trees sang with us.”