“That’s not helpful,” Raisa snapped. “I was promised the gift of prophesy. I can’t govern with a pocketful of platitudes and vague warnings and reassurances. You told me the Gray Wolf line is hanging by a thread. I want to know how to keep it from breaking.”

Hanalea and Althea looked at each other.

“All we can do is help you recognize what is in your own heart, Raisa,” Hanalea said softly. “You have access to all the knowledge and all the gifts you need to survive, if you will use them. You will have the chance to right a great wrong.”

“What about my mother?” Raisa asked. “Did she have everything she needed? Theoretically, anyway?”

Once again, they looked at each other as if they were straying close to the boundary of what was permitted.

“You must use all the strengths of the Gray Wolf line in order to win,” Althea said.

“The time will come when you will be forced to make a choice,” Hanalea said. “When that time comes, choose love.”

The Gray Wolf queens rose as one, turned, and trotted into the mist.

Raisa slumped back on her heels, head bowed, seized by a fear of failure. What use was it to know that she could win if she only knew how to go about it? Losing would cut that much closer to the heart.

Choose love! As if that were an option for the Gray Wolf queens.

Though she’d learned a tremendous amount in the past year, it was still too short a time. She’d thought she would have years to prepare, years to work with her mother as a queen in training.

Tears burned in her eyes. There’s likely never been such a weepy queen, she thought.

A thought struck her. She could run away, like she had a year ago, when her mother had tried to marry her to Micah Bayar. She could be halfway to Delphi by morning, and continue on to Oden’s Ford. She could enter the Temple School and become a dedicate.

And the Gray Wolf line could unravel in her wake.

It’s just as well, she thought dispiritedly. What kind of dedicate would you be? You can’t even manage to meditate for a night, let alone a lifetime.

It’s not fair, she thought. I should be going to parties. I should be kissing lots of boys. I’m too young to be queen. Too young to be sparring with wizards.

Relax, she told herself. There’s not a wizard in sight.

And then something made her look up to see Han Alister standing in the doorway of the temple.

She didn’t know how long he’d been there staring at her, but it seemed to take him by surprise when she looked up and caught him. His usual street face was gone. In its place was a wistful vulnerability, a kind of feverish and hopeless desire.