“I’ll get right on it, my lord,” Gillen said. He backed away, bowing himself out before young Bayar could change his mind. Or take hold of his arm again. “You and your friends make yourselves to home,” he said. Five thousand girlies would buy a lot of hospitality from Mac Gillen. “I’ll tell Cook to prepare whatever you like.”

“What are you going to do about the musicians?” Bayar asked abruptly.

Gillen blinked at him. “What about them?” he asked. “Do you want them to stay on here? They might help pass the time, and the girl’s a pretty one.”

Young Bayar shook his head. “They’ve heard too much. As I said, no one must connect you with my father or know that you are working for him.” When Gillen frowned, still confused, Bayar added, “This is your fault, Lieutenant, not mine. I’ll handle my cousins, but you are the one who will have to deal with the players.”

“So,” Gillen said, “are you saying I should send them away?”

“No,” Bayar said, straightening his wizard stoles, not meeting Gillen’s eyes. “I’m saying you should kill them.”

C H A P T E R  T W O

IN THE
BORDERLANDS

Han Alister reined in his pony at the highest point in Marisa Pines Pass. He looked out over the jagged southernmost Queens toward the hidden flatlands of Arden beyond. These were unfamiliar mountains, homes to long-dead queens with names he’d never heard. The highest peaks poked into the clouds, cold stone unclothed by vegetation. The lower slopes glittered with aspens haloed by autumn foliage.

The temperature had dropped as they climbed, and Han had added layers of clothing as necessary. Now his upland wool hat was pulled low over his ears, and his nose stung in the chilly air.

Hayden Fire Dancer nudged his pony up beside Han to share the view.

They’d left Marisa Pines Camp two days before. The clan camp sat strategically at the northern end of the pass, the major passage through the southern Spirit Mountains to the city of Delphi and the flatlands of Arden beyond. The road that began as the Way of the Queens in the capital city of Fellsmarch dwindled into little more than a wide game trail in the highest part of the pass.

Though it was prime traveling season, they’d met little trade traffic along the trail—only a few hollow-eyed refugees from Arden’s civil war.

Dancer pointed ahead, toward the southern slope. “Lord Demonai says that before the war, the wagon lines ran from morning to night in season, carrying trade goods up from the flatlands. Food, mostly—grain, livestock, fruits, and vegetables.”

Dancer had traveled through Marisa Pines Pass before, on trading expeditions with Averill Lightfoot, trademaster and patriarch of Demonai Camp.

“Now the armies swallow it up,” Dancer went on. “Plus, a lot of the cropland has been burned and spoiled, so it’s out of production.”