“So it has been rumored, Master,” Vo said slowly. “We all pray for the day to come soon.”

“It will. But first, I have lost something that I want back, and it is to be found somewhere in that northern wilderness—the lands of your forefathers.”

“And you wish me to…retrieve this thing, Master?”

“I do. It will require cunning and discretion, you see, and it will be easier for a white-skinned man who can speak one of the languages of Eion to travel there, seeking this small thing which I desire.”

“And may I ask what that thing is, Golden One?”

“A girl. The daughter of an unimportant priest. Still, I chose her for the Seclusion and she had the dreadful manners to run away.” The autarch laughed, a quiet growl that might have come from a cat about to unsheathe its claws. “Her name is…what was it? Ah, yes—Qinnitan. You will bring her back to me.”

“Of course, Master.” The soldier’s expression became even more still.

“You are thinking again, Vo. That is good. I chose you because I need a man who can use his head. This woman is somewhere in the lands of our enemies, and if someone learns I want her, she may become the object of a contest. I do not want that.” The autarch sat back and waved his hand. This time it was only an ordinary servant who scurried forward to refill his goblet. “But what you are wondering is this: Why should the autarch let me go free in the land of my ancestors? Even if I sincerely try to fulfill his quest, if I fail there is no punishment he can visit on me unless I return to Xis. No, do not bother to deny it. It is what anyone would think.” The young autarch turned to one of his child servants, a silent Favored. “Bring me my cousin Febis. He should be in his apartments.”

As they waited, the autarch had the servant refill Vo’s cup. Pinimmon Vash, who had some inkling of what was to come, was glad he was not drinking the strong, sour Mihanni wine, so unsettling to the stomach.

Febis, a chubby, balding man with the reddened cheeks of an inveterate drinker made even more obvious by the pallor of fear, hurried into the chamber and threw himself on his hands and knees in front of the autarch, bumping his forehead against the stone.

“Golden One, surely I have done nothing wrong! Surely I have not offended you! You are the light of all our lives!”

The autarch smiled. Vash never ceased to marvel at how the same expression that would bring joy if it were on the face of a young child or a pretty woman could, just by transferring it to the autarch’s smoothly youthful features, suddenly become a thing to inspire terror. “No, Febis, you have done nothing wrong. I called you here only because I wish to demonstrate something.” He turned to the soldier Vo. “You see, I had a similar problem with those of my relations, like Cousin Febis, who remained after my father and brothers had died—after I, by the grace of Nushash of the Gleaming Sword, had become autarch. How could I be certain that some of these family members might not ponder whether, as the succession had passed over several of my brothers upon their deaths and came to me, it might not continue on to Febis or one of the other cousins after my untimely death? Of course, I could have simply killed them all when I took the crown. It would only have been a few hundred. I could have done that, couldn’t I, Febis?”