There was a touch of perfume in the air, a musky scent that she had smelled before but could not place now. Some noble, perhaps, come recently to pay his respects and offer gifts. Indeed, quite a few had done that. Corinn had permitted only Agnates the honor, and only if they promised to enter quietly, view the prince from a distance, and leave whatever present they had in the space cleared to display them. A pile of them now crowded the corner.

“Oh, my lovely boy,” Mena said, lowering herself gently to the edge of his bed. He lay on his side, head resting on his two hands in a posture that looked almost deliberate, as if he had taken it just to model sleeping, childish innocence. She ran her fingers over his hair, pulling a few strands back from his forehead, and then sat taking him in. There was much of Corinn in his features, which meant much of their mother. But there was no mistaking signs of the boy’s gray-eyed father as well. She did not see it as much when he was awake. Now, though, with the leisure to gaze at his features, she could see how much Aaden was a child of two nations. She wondered if Corinn acknowledged it, too.

Mena had never seen Hanish Mein in person. Strange that a man who had affected so much of her life—and still did—had never been in the same room as she. She had met his brother Maeander. She had turned herself in to him in Vumu, and used him to transport her back to the world all those years ago, just after she had hunted and killed the god Maeben. When she looked close at the parts of Aaden that were not Akaran, it was Maeander she saw in her head. So sharp featured and tall; handsome, yes, but in a high-chinned, arrogant manner. Fortunate, then, that whatever Meinish traits Aaden showed had been softened by Corinn’s round-edged beauty.

She did not doubt that the boy would wake just as Corinn said. Whatever had been in that song, part of it was power, the sorcery Corinn had been studying. But would he wake remembering the moment the Numrek betrayed him? Would he see that knife thrusting toward him, or would he be spared it? For that matter, had he seen what happened to Devlyn? Mena hoped not, for she could not bear the thought that he would live with that brutal image in his mind, with the responsibility he might feel for his friend’s death.

“Don’t remember it,” she said. “None of it was your fault. The guilt all rests on others. Devlyn was a brave boy; think of him as dying to save you. That’s what he wanted. That’s why he will be remembered as a warrior. A hero. I’ll make sure it’s so. And you will, too, when you wake.