When he got to the audience chamber, the place was lit, and Kaleth, Lord Khumun, and Ari were all bent over a map that was spread out on the floor of the chamber because it was too long for a table. “—so they’re coming here and here,” Kaleth was saying, tapping the end of a long stick on some place on the map.

Kaleth looked up at Kiron’s entrance. “Good, you’re here. Now we have all the pieces. Everything just erupted; there was no warning. All at once, we’re looking at a full-scale invasion of Alta. The war we’ve had up until now is nothing to the war that we’re about to see.”

“The Tian army is on the move,” said Ari, studying the map with a frown in his face. “They’re actually invading Altan lands right this moment; they’ve crossed the last border and they’re into the delta.”

“And I think I know what the Magi are saving Aket-ten for,” Kaleth said, bluntly, looking up at him as he winced. “Look here, what season is this?”

“Rains,” Kiron replied, wondering why that should be relevant—except that the season of rains was a miserable time to be invading the delta. Normally, the Tian army remained on simple border guard during this season. If they were invading now, they must have a compelling reason to think they needed to.

Or—perhaps the advisers believed there was a compelling reason to mount their invasion in the face of constant rain and rising waters.

“And the Magi can’t use the Eye when it’s dark, or there’s cloud cover,” Kaleth said, his mouth set in a grim line. “The Magi now posing as advisers to the Great King of Tia know that. They were waiting for the rains. They must have been.”

Kiron nodded, interest fading fast. What did he care what the Tian Magi did or did not decide to do? What could this invasion possibly matter? How could it change anything?

“It looks like real war between the two sets of Magi,” Kaleth told him. “I don’t know what happened that the ones with the Tians got exiled from Alta, but it looks as if it isn’t just that they’re battening on the war dead that keeps them there, and it certainly doesn’t look as if they’re cooperating with the Altan Magi. They seem to want it all, and they’ve now got the army to get it for them.”

“But—if the Magi are really fighting each other—” Could this be the key to getting Aket-ten free?

“We forgot one thing,” said Ari, as Kiron nodded. “And so did the Tian Magi. The Magi have been—and are—weather workers.”

Kiron shook his head. “Which means what, exactly? They haven’t the power anymore to send a storm down on the Tian forces—”