“How do things stand with the Council members?” Stoon asked, moving the subject away from the Druids. “Have Arodian and Edinja come to terms with your unexpected elevation to Prime Minister? Do they suspect anything?”

“They’re confused still.” Drust sipped at his wine absently, thinking about his rivals. “But I might want to do something about them before that changes.”

“But not just yet. It will look suspicious if something happens to them so soon after the death of the old Prime Minister. It might be better to let a little time pass.”

Stoon was right, of course. But he was missing the point. Drust shook his head. “I don’t intend to eliminate them. I intend to eliminate any threat they might pose.”

Stoon looked at him with interest. “How do you plan to do that?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Are you? Well, you’d better watch your back with those two. They’re every bit as clever as you.”

Drust gave him a sharp look. “Then why have I been able to out-maneuver them so far? Why am I Prime Minister and not either of them?”

Stoon said nothing. He just stared at the other man, waiting.

Finally, Drust shrugged and said, “I take your point. I won’t get overconfident. I know what has to happen, but I realize I shouldn’t expect it to happen too quickly. In any case, I am more interested at the moment in my plans for the Druids than in worrying about Arodian and Edinja.”

Eliminating the Druids and reducing Paranor to rubble was Drust Chazhul’s primary goal as Prime Minister of the Federation. He had spoken out for years on the subject, riding the wave of resentment that infused every public discourse surrounding the Federation’s stinging defeat on the Prekkendorran—a disaster that might be a hundred years past but felt as recent to most as yesterday. It was a defeat almost everyone attributed to the interference of the Druids on behalf of the Free-born allies. The Federation had been humiliated and its power sharply curtailed by the subsequent peace agreement. And although none of the current generation of Federation men and women had fought in that war, their hatred of the Druids was an inheritance passed down to them by their parents and grandparents—an inbred antipathy that politicians and military zealots continued to nurture.

Drust Chazhul used that hatred for the leverage it provided him politically. As Prime Minister and a career politician with boundless ambition, he understood that as long as the Druids existed the Federation’s efforts at domination of the lesser Races and their lands would be curtailed. Which, in turn, meant that Drust’s plan to grow his personal power base in tandem with Federation expansion faced an insurmountable roadblock.