“Micah Bayar comes from Aerie House, a well-respected, noble family,” the queen said. “They’ve been on the council for over a thousand years. On the other hand, the Byrnes—”

“Don’t say it!” Raisa interrupted. “Don’t you dare. Edon Byrne is captain of your Guard. Are you saying Amon doesn’t come from a respected family?”

“Of course he does, Raisa,” Marianna said, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “But he’s a soldier, and his father’s a soldier, and his father, back generations. They’re good at what they do. But that’s all they’ll ever be.”

Marianna paused to allow this to sink in. “I know Amon has been your friend. But now that you’re older, you need to appreciate the differences between you, and how impossible this all is.”

“How impossible what is?” Raisa quivered with indignation. “I’m not planning to marry him. I know all about my duty to the line. But Amon’s my friend, and even if it turned into more than that, it’s nobody’s business but my own, as long as it doesn’t affect the succession. Which it won’t.”

“But it might,” her mother went on. “Do you have any idea how this looks, at a time when we’re planning your marriage?”

Raisa opened her mouth and the words came pouring out as if they’d been dammed up in there for years. “If you’re worried about how things look, you should worry about you and the High Wizard.”

Marianna surged to her feet, the shawl spilling to the floor. “Raisa ana’Marianna! What do you mean?” The reasonable voice had disappeared.

“I’m just saying that people are talking about you and Lord Bayar,” Raisa said. “They’re saying he has too much influence. People say…people say it’s time my father came home.” She swallowed hard, tears welling up in her eyes. “I wish he would too.” She got off a curtsy. “By your leave, Your Majesty.”

She didn’t wait for leave, but turned and fled from the room. But before she got out of earshot, the queen called after her, her voice high and shrill, “I’m going to speak to Captain Byrne about this.”

Like everything else in Raisa’s life, her time in temple was prescribed by the Nǽming. Four days a month, the Nǽming said, the queen and princess heir would go to temple. That could mean one day in a week, or four days in a row.

At Demonai Camp, time in temple was a privilege and not an obligation. Four days in the Matriarch Lodge, in the company of others, or four days in the temple of the forest, meditating on the Maker and all of the works in the natural world. Raisa always ended those days feeling more powerful, more hopeful, somehow more centered in herself and certain of what she needed to do.