Even as the Prince’s sarcastic hilarity filled the room, Kevin’s mind cut back to the pulse beat of time that had followed his first announcement of Aileron’s return. There had been sharp irony in Diarmuid then, too, but only after the first instant. In the first instant, Kevin thought he had seen something very different flash across the Prince’s face, and he was almost certain he knew what it was.

Loren and Matt had gone with Teyrnon and Barak to bring the body home from the Tree. The Godwood was not a place where soldiers would willingly go, and in any case, on the eve of war the last two mages in Paras Derval saw it as fit that they walk together with their sources, apart from other men, and share their thoughts on what would lie in the days ahead.

They were agreed on the kingship, though in some ways it was a pity. For all Aileron’s harsh abrasiveness, there was in his driven nature the stuff of a war king of old. Diarmuid’s mercurial glitter made him simply too unreliable. They had been wrong about things before, but not often in concert. Barak concurred. Matt kept his own counsel, but the other three were used to that.

Besides, they were in the wood by then and, being men acquainted with power, and deeply tuned to what had happened in the night, they walked in silence to the Summer Tree.

And then, in a different kind of silence, walked back away, under leaves dripping with the morning rain. It was taught, and they all knew the teachings, that Mörnir, if he came for the sacrifice, laid claim only to the soul. The body was husk, dross, not for the God, and it was left behind.

Except it hadn’t been.

A mystery, but it was solved when Loren and Matt returned to Paras Derval and saw the girl, in the dun robes of an acolyte of the sanctuary, waiting outside their quarters in the town.

“My lord,” she said, as they walked up, “the High Priestess bade me tell you to come to her in the Temple so soon as you might.”

“Tell him?” Matt growled.

The child was remarkably composed. “She did say that. The matter is important.”

“Ah,” said Loren. “She brought back the body.”

The girl nodded.

“Because of the moon,” he went on, thinking aloud. “It fits.”

Surprisingly, the acolyte nodded again. “Of course it does,” she said coolly. “Will you come now?”

Exchanging a raised-eyebrows look, the two of them followed Jaelle’s messenger through the streets to the eastern gate.

Once beyond the town, she stopped. “There is something I would warn you about,” she said.

Loren Silvercloak looked down from his great height upon the child. “Did the Priestess tell you to do so?”

“Of course not.” Her tone was impatient.