Hierarch Sisel finished the invocation of Madi Surazem, thanking the goddess for protecting the child and his mother during the birth. Tinwright thought the hierarch looked drawn and unsettled—but then, who did not? The shadow of the Twilight People hung over the castle like a shroud, chilling the hearts of even those who pretended not to feel it. It was having its effect in other ways, too, with fewer ships coming into the harbor and, because of all the refugees from the mainland city and villages, many more mouths to feed even as many of the kingdom’s farms lay deserted and untended. Little as he knew about such things, even Matt Tinwright realized that when spring came and no crops were planted it could mark the beginning of the end for Southmarch.

Hierarch Sisel stood behind a small altar that had been erected just for this ceremony so that the ceremonial fire could be placed atop the large stone altar. The flames billowed behind him as cold air swirled in the high places of the temple. “Who brings this child before the gods?” he asked.

“I do,” said Anissa in a small voice.

Sisel nodded. “Then bring him forward.”

To Tinwright’s surprise, the queen didn’t carry the child to the altar herself, but nodded for the nurse holding the baby to follow her. When they stood before the altar, Sisel threw back the child’s blanket.

“With the living earth of Kernios,” he proclaimed, rubbing the bottoms of the child’s feet with dark dust. “With the strong arm of Perin,”—he lifted the tau cross called the Hammer and held it over the child’s head for a brief moment before setting it down—“and with the singing waters of Erivor, patron of your forefathers, guardian of your family’s house…” He dipped his fingers into a bowl and spattered the child on the top of the head. The baby began to cry. Sisel grimaced ever so slightly, then made the sign of the Three. “In the sight of the Trigon and all the gods of Heaven, and soliciting the wise protection of all their oracles on this, the prophets’ own day, I grant you the name Olin Alessandros Benediktos Eddon. May the blessings of heaven sustain you.” The hierarch looked up. “Who stands for the father?”

“I will, Eminence,” said Hendon Tolly. Anissa gazed at him with grateful pleasure, just as if he had really been the child’s father, and in that moment Tinwright felt he saw it all plain: of course Tolly did not want Elan—he had bigger plans. If Olin did not come back his wife and son would need another man in their lives. And who would be better than the handsome young lord who was already the infant prince’s guardian?

Hendon Tolly took the baby from the nurse’s arms and walked slowly around the altar, symbolically introducing young Olin to the household. Any other family, even a rich one, would have performed this ceremony in their own home, and before this day even the Eddons themselves had blessed their new children in the homely confines of the Erivor chapel, not in a vast barn like the Trigon Temple. Tinwright could not help wondering whose idea it had been to perform the blessing here in front of so many people. He had thought they were holding the Carrying ceremony ahead of Duke Caradon’s arrival because to wait a day—to hold it at the beginning of the Kerneia—would be bad luck. Now he decided that Hendon simply did not want his older brother present to steal any of the attention he commanded as guardian of the castle.