Of course. Amon already knew the answer when he asked the question. In his heart of hearts he’d known his father’s priorities all along.

“What about Oden’s Ford? Would I go back, or…?”

“We’ll see how things stand when the time comes. It may be you’ll go back. Whatever serves the line.” His father sighed. “I’d wanted you to complete your training before your naming. But I don’t think we can risk waiting.”

But—there was this other thing Amon had avoided thinking about. His feelings for Raisa. Even now his heart beat faster when he thought of her. Images rolled through his mind—Raisa, dressed as a boy, in that ridiculous cap, striding unarmed into Southbridge Guardhouse to save gang members who were being tortured. Raisa delivering name day gifts to Speaker Jemson to feed the poor. Raisa demanding that he help her become a better queen.

Raisa in the garden by torchlight—her hair hanging in long strands around her face, chin propped on her fist, green eyes deep enough to drown in. Raisa floating in his arms around the dance floor, her head against his shoulder, her small perfect body pressed against his while he tried to control the hammering of his heart. He remembered those two kisses that she’d probably given without a thought.

Two kisses that still woke him up at night.

Everything about her seduced him—her looks, her speech, the way she moved, the person she was and was meant to be.

“Da,” he said, staring down at the table, unable to meet his father’s eyes, “the thing is, I’m…I have feelings for Raisa—for the princess heir—that I shouldn’t have. I’m worried that I might—that we might—do something that would…harm the line.”

Amon swallowed hard and looked up into his father’s face and saw something that he never expected to see—understanding layered over sorrow.

“Amon,” he said. “We love the Gray Wolf queens. But it’s like I told you. Once named, we will not harm the line. It is our great strength, and also our burden.”

Amon stared at his father. He thought of his mother, dead in childbirth with Ira, and wondered if she had known. By the standards of the day, Edon Byrne had been a good husband and an attentive father, faithful to duty and queen. Now he seemed like a tragic figure, a holder of secrets.

What about my own choice? Amon thought. Raisa would never be his; he knew that. But if he took himself off to Oden’s Ford, and after that to a posting at Chalk Cliffs, chances were the pain would fade in a decade or so. He was only seventeen.