The baby kicked. She rested her hands upon her stomach, tried to guess if she were feeling an arm or a leg. “Guess you’re going to be a boy. They say boys are more active.”

The baby kicked again. She gasped. It was strong. “Varth?” But he wasn’t there. Out with the King again, probably. What were they up to, anyway? She still didn’t know why Bragi wanted Varth here. Not really. He had his tale to tell, but he was tricky. You never knew. Even Varth might not know.

She hadn’t gotten out of the apartment much, but still had sensed the deep currents twisting through Castle Krief. Servants chattered and speculated. There was trouble with the succession. Bragi had been chosen King, but his family hadn’t been made hereditary custodians of Kavelin. The crown would be up for grabs if he died. Several parties wanted control of the succession.

Then there was the eastern situation, and the sporadic civil war in neighboring Hammad al Nakir, which could have considerable impact here.

And, of course, there were the traditional ethnic frictions within Kavelin itself, frictions three enlightened monarchs had been able to ameliorate only slightly.

She stared out her window and thought of her distant mountain home. She had been no more happy at Fangdred. Each day had witnessed its prayer that the outside would call them forth. Now they were free of that isolation, and she only longed to retreat to the safety of her mountain fastness.

“I must be mad. I can’t even be satisfied when my prayers are answered.” The baby moved again. “What are you doing in there? Jumping rope?” She tried to relax. There was surcease in sleep, sometimes.

Sleep was slow coming. Her back ached. Her legs and feet hurt. Her mind would not abandon its neurotic harping despite her efforts to silence it. And the baby would not lie still.

But sleep of a sort did come, and with it visions as disquieting as anything her mind threw up while awake.

They belonged to a family of dreams she had begun to know well. She dreamed about Ethrian, a desert, and a great, frightening shadow. Her son was calling for help. His voice was weak and remote. The shadow was amused. It lashed out at her child, inflicting intolerable torment. She reached out for Ethrian, but he couldn’t tell she was there.

She had had a lot of Ethrian dreams lately, mainly when she wasn’t too deeply asleep. They varied, yet always showed her son alive, trying to evade some shadowy peril.

Varth claimed it was just pregnancy doing strange things, that her dreams had no parallel in the real world. But she had been through this before, several years ago. She hadn’t been pregnant then.

She believed cluster dreams reflected truth. There was great magic in dreams, though she hadn’t the knowledge to interpret them. Her own touch of magic was severely diminished now she no longer had brothers. Their grasp of the Power had always required the concentration of the entire family….