“Explain yourself now, Dagon,” Corinn said. She stood only a step away, for the chamber was small, more like a fissure in a cave than a man-made room. Lit from above, she was frightening, all highlight or shadow. He had no problem believing her capable of sorcery. She said, “Rhrenna never liked you. She’d slit your throat and bathe in the shower of blood that would bring. Considering that you have shoved us into a secret room—a room that you should know nothing about—I’ll happily pardon her and curse the leagueman who challenges me.”

A few more breaths. This was so awkward, but to get through it he must get through it. The best way to do that was to hit her so directly she was stunned to silence, and then he would regain some control. “Queen Corinn”—he gasped—”first, you must know that Sire Neen and much of the envoy were killed. Ah—” He flinched at a change in the pressure of the knife. He grasped the dolphin pendant hanging from his chest, the symbol of the league, and caressed it between his fingers. “The mission is a failure. We were betrayed in the most foul way. There are traitors within the walls of the palace at this very moment. Please, have the woman draw back her knife.”

Corinn did not do so. “My brother?”

“I know not,” Sire Dagon admitted.

“Is he alive?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he was captured. He was under our full protection, of course, but was, as I said, betrayed. We think—”

“By whom?”

“The Lothan Aklun. The Auldek. Both. We arrived to find them at war. They both sought to make us pawns. Tricked us. There was a massacre. And, Your Majesty, most important right now: the Numrek have betrayed us.”

Corinn stood still. For a long time she looked like some beautiful, bloodless witch, the type of being who might haunt and excite adolescent nightmares. For a few moments, Sire Dagon felt he might have failed. There was too much to say, too much to explain, too many lies to navigate, even as he created more. For a moment, the idea of Rhrenna slicing his life from him did not seem so bad. At least it would end the complications.

“What do you mean the Numrek betrayed us?”

“They—Oh, it’s hard to explain with a dagger at my throat.”

Corinn shrugged. “Do it anyway.”

So he did. As best he could, flinching often, feeling the trickles of blood that oozed out of small nicks made by the knife. He could smell Rhrenna’s breath—not unpleasant—and hear the moist coagulation of his blood on her fingers when she flexed them. He told of how the Ambergris arrived to find the Lothan Aklun and Auldek in open war with each other. The Aklun were suffering, nearly defeated; Sire Neen tried to arrange a peace, but he failed. The Auldek met with him under the guise of parley, he said, but Calrach chose the moment to switch sides. The Auldek were their cousins, similar in many ways. Together, they slaughtered the entire delegation party. Only a few from the landing party got back to the Ambergris. The vessel stayed a time in Aklun waters, trying to assess the situation. By the time they sailed for home, they believed two things: the Lothan Aklun were all but conquered, and the Numrek were trying to get the Auldek to attack the Known World via the same route they had used.