Well, he was the best warrior King Bifalt had. No Bellegerin or Amikan could match him. Still, Bifalt wished that his brother would occasionally show a little weakness. If Jaspid had ever looked daunted, the devotee of Spirit Lylin might not have felt compelled to beat him so badly.

The King found himself shivering. He could not control it.

From his place by the hearth, Lome lurched to his feet, came to Bifalt’s side. For once, he was not staggering with drink.

Jaspid glanced at his younger brother, gave Lome a fragment of a smile, then faced the King. “That messenger is half-frozen, Majesty,” he explained. “I sent him to the stables. It is warm there. He can recover while his horse is tended.

“He brought word from General Klamath. The reef is under attack. The enemy has come, the Great God Rile.” After a slight pause, the older Prince added, “And there has been treachery. Captain Flisk and the Magisters of wind have been fired upon.”

His announcement left a shocked silence in the air. Prince Lome stood with his mouth open. The fire in the hearth shed no heat. The flames hardly seemed to flicker.

The reef—

The enemy—

Treachery?

In that instant, Bifalt felt himself freeze. Chilled to the bone, he did not know how to move. His preparations in the bay were as ready as the weather permitted. He himself was not. Like Klamath and his other advisers, he had believed that the enemy was still distant. Estie’s only message should have warned him that he was mistaken; but he had not drawn the right conclusions. He had simply taken Magister Facile’s murder, like the Archpriest Makh’s disappearance with Elgart, as a sign that his enemy was the Great God. Unable to bear thinking about the woman he loved, the woman who had abandoned him, he had not followed the implications of her warning.

Treachery.

Treachery that weakened the defenses in the bay when the cannoneers, Magisters, and riflemen there should have been preparing themselves to fight.

He needed to know how Rile had contrived a betrayal.

He needed to stop shivering.

Only a moment had passed. Jaspid might have said something more, but Lome spoke first. “In this weather?” he demanded. “Impossible! Klamath is mistaken.” He sounded more indignant than appalled, outraged by this insult to his insistence that there would be no war.

That protest struck a spark in the ready tinder of Jaspid’s nature. “You are mistaken, Brother,” he snapped. “This is not a subject on which the General can be wrong. He is there. If the reef is under attack, he has witnessed it.”

“It is still impossible!” cried Lome. “In this weather? The whole world has been blind for days!”

He must have realized that he could not escape now. He would have to command the evacuation of the Open Hand.