“Is it true what I hear said about you, Rialus?” Dariel asked.

“What’s that, sir?”

Dariel did not slacken his pace, but looked at the councillor askance, one corner of his mouth lifted. “That you’ve found love, Rialus. That you found marital harmony in the arms of a woman who was once your servant. I’d no idea you were so liberally minded, though I had heard you were on something of a diligent search for a … well, for a wife to complete you.”

This had been a running joke for the last few years. Rialus, once he had his quarters set up in what had been a Meinish compound during Hanish’s rule, had set about staffing it almost entirely with attractive young women. It was rumored that not all of them knew much about keeping an official’s house in order, but most of them made up for it with a propensity toward buxomness. A few, it was said, came directly from houses of prostitution and served entirely to satisfy Rialus’s considerable carnal appetite. Who could blame him—pent up as he had been in Cathgergen for so many of his prime years? Dariel really felt no superiority to him in this regard. He did not even condemn Rialus for marrying a servant girl. Truth be known, he envied him the freedom to marry whomever he chose. This was not a freedom he himself had, as Corinn had made abundantly clear.

“No need to explain yourself to me,” Dariel said, cutting him off before he got fully up to speed in his sputtering explanation. He slapped a hand down on the man’s thin shoulder, feeling him wince beneath it. “Be a happy man, Rialus. Plant a child in her. Become immortal. …”

The prince’s voice trailed off. He had just mounted one of the upper stairs and turned on the patio to take in the view. As ever, the terraced descent of Acacia to the sea was a wonder to behold. Beneath him, the land cascaded down, level on level, merging together like a maze cut by stairways and fortifying walls, with great houses in the higher reaches and smaller structures lower. Corinn had ordered new paint colors mixed to announce the return of Akaran rule and to represent the new age she believed they were entering. So the rooftops and spires and globes below him flashed in brilliant hues of sky blue and crimson and orange, of brown and silver that shimmered like sun on water.

Dariel found it somewhat garish, really. He almost remarked once that the colors suited the flamboyant tastes of a Sea Isle brigand outpost, but he had held his tongue, sure that Corinn would not care for the comparison. Still, garishly clothed or not, Acacia had weathered the changes of human fortune with quiet resilience. He wondered if the island itself would outlive all empires and go on in its beauty long after humans ceased clamoring over it. The sea would surround it then just as now. The sun would rise from one horizon and set in the other, just as now. In a way this notion of a lonely Acacia was a pleasing thought, though Dariel was not sure why that should be so. He should want his people to rule here without end. He did, of course. But a person, he had come to believe, can want two conflicting things at the same time.