“Treason against the emperor?”

“Not against the emperor. She’s a harsh taskmaster for harsh times, except for her one weakness.”

“Which is?” Elen asked, curious to see what a Xilsi in this mood would spill.

“Everyone knows the crown prince is unsuitable. Everyone except his mother, the emperor. So, the palace and the Manors are forced into a corner. They must back you, Your Highness, or they must back Prince Astaylin, in the hope that one or the other will rise in the emperor’s esteem. Yet, at the same time, they must be seen in every public way to support the crown prince. That must be why the griffin scout was murdered. Prince Astaylin knew you were going north and wanted to block you. But why north? That’s what I didn’t understand. Far Boundary Vigil is a dead end. What is there that matters so much? Who is the envoy, and what does it mean? I finally asked Simo point-blank this morning after you raced away. He refused to answer. I think not even he knows.”

“No one knows,” said the haunt with a smile that Xilsi no doubt saw as the smug triumph of an ambitious, arrogant man who has kept a treasonous plot hidden all this time. But Elen knew it was genuine amusement on his part. He was simply telling the truth.

No one knew, if the prince hadn’t told them. No one knew, because the haunt had no access to the prince’s thoughts or memories.

Except Elen was finally starting to put the pieces together herself. A race to a terminus Vigil, past which lay no land but only an ocean of Pall. Or so people thought.

But a nameless land did lie beyond the Pall. A land filled with too many people in a too-small country; with too many soldiers whose masters fought endless, if small, wars with each other and with the raiders—the Sea Wolves—who harried the stormy coast. As a child, she’d not understood what it all meant, only that soldiers did not kill atoners in skirmishes because atoners were needed as bait for Spore. If a master was killed, their atoners were captured and put to work for a new master. In a way, she and Ao had been lucky. Their lives could have been much worse.

Luviara fit into the prince’s puzzle, too, but Elen couldn’t figure out how. She was missing too much information. Her map had too many blank spots.

Ahead, by the copse of trees, Ipis shouted an all clear. Behind, Fulmo began to close the gap between him and the prince’s carriage. The second carriage kept pace with the gagast.