“I did a good thing, didn’t I?” Gaborn said. “I mean, Borenson is a good man, isn’t he? He’ll love her.”

The Days smiled a tight-lipped smile, watching Gaborn from slitted eyes. “There is a saying among our kind: Good deeds portend good fortune.”

Gaborn considered the words “our kind.” Though the Days were human, they considered themselves as creatures apart. Perhaps they were right. Their service to the Time Lords required great sacrifices. They forsook home and family, loyalties to any king. Instead, these mysterious men and women simply studied the great lords, wrote the chronicles, published the deeds of a man’s life when he died, and in all other ways remained aloof from common politics.

Yet Gaborn did not entirely trust these watchers, with their secretive smiles. They only feigned aloofness in the affairs of men, of that Gaborn felt certain. Every Runelord was followed by a Days who recorded his words and deeds. Sometimes, when two Days met, they reported to one another in coded phrases. Gaborn’s ancestors had been studying the Days for generations, trying to break their codes.

But how aloof were they really? Gaborn suspected that the Days had sometimes betrayed secrets to enemy kings. Certain battles could only have been won on the advice of informers—informers who were probably Days.

Yet if as a group the Days took sides in wars between nations, neither Gaborn nor anyone else had ever been able to determine where the Days placed their allegiance.

No discernible battle lines were drawn. Evil kings prospered from Days’ spying as often as did good. And no king could escape them. Some kings had tried ridding themselves of the Days, either through assassination or banishment. But such kings never reigned for another season. As a group, the Days were too powerful. Any king who dared strike down one Days would discover just how much information a Days’ partner could divulge. Distressing information would be revealed to enemy kings, fortunes would be ruined, peasants would revolt.

No one could defy the Days. Nor did Gaborn feel certain that any man should want to do so. An old adage went, “A man who will not bear scrutiny cannot bear a crown.” It was said that those words were given by the Glories themselves, when the Days were first partnered to the kings. “A Runelord should be a servant to man,” the Glories had said.

So Gaborn’s title came with a price. He would never be free of this man, never be alone. Though he might rule a kingdom, some things were rightfully denied even to Gaborn.