Sangae had moved closer to him, leaning in as if he wanted to see her from the same vantage as Kelis. He whispered. “What did I tell you? Nobody told the girl that; she told us of it, just as she told us her name. … You ask who her father is, but you can see who she is as clearly as I can. What man would not recognize his brother’s child? That’s who she is. And we think she is in danger.”

“Word of her could reach agents of the queen,” Ioma said.

Sinper was silent for a moment and then added, not whispering this time, “We should talk of this privately.”

“And why does this matter to you?” Kelis said, his voice edged by the unease all this stirred into him. Again, that was not one of the pressing questions he had, but it was what came out.

It was Ioma who answered. “Because, Kelis, Benabe is of the family Ou. Shen is my cousin. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, cousin.” The girl nodded. She studied Kelis a moment, then stepped closer. She reached out with one hand and touched her fingertips to his forearm. “I have to go. I would like it if you would go with me. It would be good that way. They will keep me safe. They promised, so long as you take me.”

Benabe took the girl away after that. Nobody explained what the child was referring to and Kelis for some time could not form the words to ask. He moved through the rest of the meeting with an outward appearance of dazed indifference, giving little indication of what he thought. He knew they were talking, vaguely understood the things they were saying, but before he could engage with any of that he had to stare in the face the realization of what Shen’s existence meant. Aliver’s child! She was the heir to the Acacian throne. Without a legitimate heir to take precedence, rule could have gone to her to be passed down to her line, not Corinn’s. She was only a girl, but the eyes of the world would not see her as that. She was enough to set the world at war again, and he, being witness to her, had a role in whatever was to come.

“What did she mean,” Kelis asked, breaking back into the conversation that had gone on without him, “about my going with her? With her where?”

“Oh …” Sangae let out the word as a long breath. “I thought you would know right away. To the Santoth. She says they are calling her to them.

C HAPTER
S EVENTEEN

The way it happened was strange, Rialus thought. He had lived through it, watching the change in their fortune as it occurred, but it was all so oddly muted. It was sudden, yes—and Dariel had made a fuss—but for all that it was cordial as well. It barely seemed possible that the civil interactions he and the prince had had with Sire Neen and the Ishtat Inspectorate had actually led to him and the prince becoming prisoners.