Walking into the audience chamber, he passed a cloaked man coming out who seemed vaguely familiar, but the man had his hood up and his face was invisible. One of the king’s spies, no doubt. Agon didn’t have time for him.

None of the news was good. The Gyres were the foremost family in the realm. To have their murder come on the same night the prince was killed was too much to bear. Agon had liked the prince, but the Gyres had been his friends. And what he’d seen at their estate, he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. The pieces weren’t fitting.

This had all the marks of a move, a big move, a play for the throne. But why this way? Killing the prince shook everything, of course, but killing the Gyres’ servants and Lady Gyre did nothing politically. Did it? As of today, his birthday, Logan Gyre became the Gyre in his father’s absence. If you wanted to wipe out a family, you started with the heirs, not everyone else, and unless the news was still en route, both Gyre heirs were still alive.

The prince’s death wasn’t only a terrible blow to the Gunder line, it was an enormous scandal. The king’s affairs had been ignored, but finding the prince dead after apparently having had relations with the king’s mistress would shed all sorts of unflattering light on the entire Gunder line. The assassination, if it were such, wasn’t just a tragedy. It was a horror and an embarrassment.

The lord general wondered whether the horror or the embarrassment would be foremost on the king’s mind. What would the queen do?

He approached the throne and climbed the stairs. The usual men were there, talking with the king. Agon trusted none of them.

“Out,” he roared. “All of you, out!”

“Excuse me,” Fergund Sa’fasti said. “But as the king’s chief—”

“OUT!” Agon bellowed in his face.

The mage shrank and joined the men streaming out of the room. Agon motioned to his bodyguards to step outside, too.

The king didn’t even look up. At length, he said, “I’m ruined, Brant. What will history say about me?”

That you were weak, ineffectual, selfish, and immoral. “Sire, we have more pressing matters.”

“Everyone’s talking about it, Brant. My son—she murdered my boy—” the king started weeping.

So the man is capable of thinking of others. If only he’d show his humanity more often.

“Your Highness, the duchess didn’t kill your son.”

“What?” the king looked up at Agon through bleary eyes.

“Sire, it was a wetboy.”

“I don’t care who actually did it, Brant! Trudana was behind it. Trudana and Logan Gyre.”

“Logan Gyre? What are you talking about?”