Jared wouldn’t have run. Blaed wouldn’t have run.

“The terms are . . .” Sadi had accepted the position of Warlord Prince of Dhemlan a few months after his father resigned. Theran remembered hearing that last night at dinner. How was he supposed to voice his objections to the terms without sounding like he was criticizing the son? Because this was one father he did not want to offend.

“Unreasonable? Insulting? Barbed?” Saetan offered with a hint of a sharp smile. “Everything has a price, Prince Grayhaven. The man who wrote up these terms has a good understanding of Terreille. A better understanding than you do, since yours, I suspect, is confined to your own Territory. Prince Sadi also has a fine understanding of how the males in Kaeleer, especially the Warlord Princes, respond to any threat to a female, let alone a Queen. You may feel hobbled by these terms, but they were thought through carefully and are designed to protect your people as well as the Queen who comes to rule.”

Realizing he’d dropped the paper when he’d grabbed for the chair,Theran retrieved it and stared at the list of conditions.

“A year? She only stays a year?”

“A year is enough time for both of you to know if your people can accept an outsider ruling over them—and if your people really want to go back to following the Old Ways of the Blood.”

“If we didn’t want to go back to living the way we did when the Gray Lady ruled, we would have settled for . . .” For one of the Queens we have—who would destroy what’s left of us as surely as one of Dorothea’s pet Queens would have done.

Theran slumped in the chair, his hands dangling between his knees. “Grayhaven is my family’s home—and my inheritance. What’s left of it. She can have the use of it. As for a tithe . . . Hell’s fire. We’re just trying to get enough food planted and harvested so that everyone has enough to eat this winter. The Queens who ruled bled the land and the people dry. I told Sadi that last night.”

“That doesn’t change what is needed for a Queen’s court,” Saetan said quietly. “She deserves something for her effort, and the court needs some way to pay for its expenses.”

“Couldn’t the tithe be paid in goods and services?” Theran asked.

“If the Queen and the First Circle are agreeable to that condition, yes, a high percentage of the tithe could be done that way.”

Hopeful that there might be more flexibility to these terms than he’d first thought, Theran looked at the sheet of paper again. “Inspections?”

“And weekly reports from the Queen.”

“Why does she have to answer to anyone? And why should my people be treated like children who get surprise tests to see if we’ve learned our manners?”