Bifalt felt close to breaking. “Have you heard nothing?” he interrupted, almost shouting. “Do you think I question her courage? I am not so simple. But she will become a woman who can work her will against people she cannot even see.”

In response, Elgart showed a glint of anger. In his own way, he had been as loyal to Amika’s Queen as to Belleger’s King. “Do you imagine, Majesty, that Queen Estie of all people will suddenly become as careless and cruel as her father?”

That question shocked Bifalt. Elgart’s query had the effect of an accusation. It wrenched the King’s image of Estie into intolerable shapes. If he had been a different man, he might have wept.

“How can I know?” he confessed: a stifled cry. “Power is a snare. It seduces. There will be no hope for her if she surrenders to it.”

Or for him.

“How can anyone know?” countered Elgart. Somehow, he contrived to sound like Third Father. “How could I suspect that you would give the book of cannon to Amika? None of us know anything. We can only do what we can with what we have.” The King’s friend paused to emphasize his point. “You have almost twenty years with your wife.”

In some other life, Bifalt might have taken Elgart by the throat to silence him. In this life, he dropped his distress into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

Too early the next morning, King Bifalt received a blistering message from General Klamath. The el-Algreb were gone, heading south to confront the Cleckin. Klamath had written his tidings fiercely enough to tear the parchment. Our beloved sister Suti al-Suri proclaims that his people are ready. His only concession to sanity—several words had been violently crossed out—is that they have taken the shoulder pads.

In a second message delivered a short time later, the General wrote more calmly. He had sent sub-Commander Hellick to ride herd on the horse-warriors—if their recklessness allowed it. When they were beaten, Hellick would signal the disaster.

That should have been a heavy blow. Belleger would lose its only allies. But during the night, Bifalt had made himself numb. He had spent most of the time thinking about Estie.

He wanted to share Elgart’s view of her. Instead, almost involuntarily, he found himself trying to imagine Estie as one of the theurgists he despised.

She was King Smegin’s daughter. His example would work against her. Even so— How could she bear charring flesh and bone to ash with her father’s Decimate? Bifalt struggled to imagine her killing in that way, but his efforts broke on the rock of his image of her.

Nevertheless he rallied when a messenger arrived from Second Captain Hegels. He had run out of time for his fears.