And he recognized Lord Ya-tiren and Lord Khumun, who flanked Ari and Nofret. By design, something like an audience chamber had been set up where the council met, and where urgent messages were heard. Ari and Nofret sat side by side on slightly taller stools than the two Lords who sat on either side of them. It was an arrangement meant to show who the real authority was.

The messenger looked at them all in exhausted confusion, then must have decided that they were the closest thing he recognized to a King and Queen and their advisers.

“My Lords. And Lady,” he said, his voice hoarse and rasping. “I was sent by the Healers of the Temple of All Gods, for there is grave news from Alta City that you must hear. There are two new faces on the Twin Thrones. The old Great Kings are dead. And it is whispered that their deaths came neither by accident, nor illness, but by the hands of men.”

Lord Ya-tiren winced; Lord Khumun only looked angry. Ari remained as unreadable as a statue, but Nofret—

Nofret nodded with resignation, as if this was news she had long expected to hear. She was not surprised, this only confirmed her deepest fears.

As the rest of the people in the room buzzed and murmured, Kiron stole a glance at Kaleth. He expected that Kaleth would look smug or, at least, unsurprised.

He didn’t. He didn’t look surprised either, but it wasn’t as if he had somehow foreseen this happening, at this moment.

That—was interesting.

The messenger held up his hand for silence. “The Great Ladies were wed to the Twin Heirs, even before the Days of Mourning were begun, much less completed,” he continued, and the disgust and affront in his tone told how most, if not all, of the citizens of Alta must have felt at the news. “The mortuary priests had not even come for the bodies before they were wed to the men who are now the Great Kings. Magus Pte-anhatep and Magus Rames-re-bet now sit in the Great Hall and reign. Before the death of the old Kings could be proclaimed, their earlier betrothal to the young princesses was dissolved and they were wed to the Twin Queens, all in a single afternoon.”