Iome did not want Gaborn to know who she was. She could not stand the thought of being ugly in his sight. Yet another fear also struck her heart, for she saw a more compelling reason to keep her identity hidden: Gaborn might feel the need to kill her. She was, after all, a Dedicate to an enemy king.

Iome spoke with a low, frightened, voice; hoping to disguise it. “Do you not even know whose corpse you carry? The Queen is dead. But the King lives. He has given his wit to Raj Ahten.”

Gaborn grasped Iome’s arm. “What of the Princess?”

“She is well. She was given a choice—to die, or to live and serve her people as regent. She was forced to give an endowment, also.”

Gaborn asked, “What has she given?” He held his breath, his face full of horror.

Iome considered speaking the truth, revealing her identity, but she could not. “She has given her sight.”

Gaborn fell silent. Abruptly he lifted the litter, signaling an end to the break, and began walking between the tombs again, thoughtful. Iome led Gaborn and the pallbearers to her parents’ tomb, which was of classic design. Nine marble spires rose from the tiny palace atop it; outside its door stood statues of King Sylvarresta and his wife, images carved in white marble shortly after their wedding eighteen years before. Iome signaled for the bearers to also bring Cleas into the tomb. As a faithful guard, it was only right that she be interred beside her queen.

As they entered the shadowy tomb, Iome smelled death and roses. Dozens of skeletons of faithful guards lay in the tomb, bones gray and moldering. But last night, someone had brought bright red rose petals and strewn them across the floor of the tomb, to alleviate the smell.

Gaborn bore Queen Sylvarresta to her sarcophagus, in the sanctum at the back of the tomb. It was a red sandstone box, with her image and name chiseled into its lid. The roof above the sanctum was a slab of sheer marble, so thin that light broke through it, shining down onto the sarcophagus beneath.

Here in this deep corner, air breathed into the tomb from tiny slits in the stonework, so that the smell of death did not reach.

It took a great deal of effort for Gaborn and two bakers to slide the lid of the sarcophagus back, exposing the empty casket. Then they lifted the queen into place, and were about to set the lid on the box when Iome begged them to stop, to let her look for a while.

Pallbearers carried Cleas to a stone shelf, pushed back the bones of some loyal guard from a decade past, and laid Cleas in his place.

They did not have Cleas’ armor and weapons to bury with her, so a baker took a warhammer from a nearby corpse, laid it across Cleas’ chest, wrapped her hands around its handle.