They’d set up a kind of alternate arrangement at the other end of the room, a rather elaborate raised chair with other chairs clustered around it on a riser. This would be the Council of Regents, made up of Gavan Bayar, the High Wizard; Bron Klemath, General of the Highlander Army; Lassiter Hakkam, the head of the Council of Nobles; Raisa’s father, Averill Demonai, representing the Spirit clans; and Roff Jemson, now speaker of the Cathedral Temple.

The side walls of the audience chamber were lined with blue-jacketed guards, most of whom Amon didn’t know. That was alarming. With a jolt, he realized that, as Raisa’s captain of the Guard, he actually commanded them, but right now they seemed more of a threat than a support. He hadn’t been gone from the capital so long that there should have been such a dramatic turnover of palace guards.

Posted closest to the council members was sharp-featured Mason Fallon, with his ink-black hair and permanent beard shadow. Amon didn’t know Fallon well, but he’d never trusted him. Now Fallon wore a corporal’s scarf. When had that happened, and who had authorized it?

Amon was cheered by the sight of Jemson. There was one friendly face, at least, besides Averill. Jemson had presided over the ceremony that had linked Amon and Raisa as captain and queen-to-be, before they’d left for Oden’s Ford. So the speaker was keeping secrets of his own.

Sitting on a level with the council members was Micah Bayar, who had no official role and shouldn’t have been there. Was he there by his father’s choice? Or by Mellony’s?

Amon scanned the others. He’d never been fond of Klemath, and Klemath had no love for the Byrnes. There was a natural competition between the elite Queen’s Guard and the regular army, and Amon’s father, Edon Byrne, had made no secret of his opinion that the army should rely less on mercenaries and more on native soldiers. And recently, it seemed that Klemath had allied himself with the Wizard Council on many issues.

Klemath had set his sons, Keith and Kip, after Raisa, hoping to rise by marrying into royalty. Now he might be hoping for a match with Mellony, assuming the Bayars had kept him in the dark about their marriage plans.

Lassiter Hakkam was as slick as most nobles, dressed in expensive clothes in the latest style. He was clever, but in Amon’s opinion, not particularly smart. Hakkam was uncle to Raisa, father to Melissa and Jon. They’d never had much use for Amon, since he was a commoner.

Gavan Bayar wore black wizard robes, his stoles draped over his shoulders, embroidered with the familiar Bayar falcons, his amulet in prominent display overtop. He looked down at Amon, his gaze sharp and calculating, as if Amon were a haunch of roast meat he was prepared to carve.