“Early.”

“Poor Edeard, couldn’t you sleep?” Her gathering thoughts were tinged with genuine concern.

“There are things I worry about,” he admitted with voice and mind. Honesty with each other; that is the key to true unity.

“Even now? That’s so wrong. So unfair.” Her arms rose up to twine around his neck. “Let’s think of something else for you to occupy yourself with.”

For a second he resisted, then allowed her to pull him down so he could lose himself in simple physical delights and forget all about the rebel provinces and Macsen and the others who struggled against the city’s unity. For a while at least.

Not surprisingly, Edeard didn’t wake again until the sun was well above the horizon. He and Hilitte bathed together in the oval pool in the bathroom, where water gurgled in along a long raised chute he’d crafted to resemble a small stream. It also showered down on them from a bulge in the curving ceiling when they asked; since he’d moved into the palace state rooms after the election, he’d been modifying things so he could have any kind of spray from a heavy jet to a light mist. He lounged in a sculpted seat at the side of the pool, watching Hilitte rinse herself off under the fast rain of droplets, deliberately stretching and twisting so he might appreciate her lithe figure. Which he did, but … Kanseen had enjoyed the new improved shower, he recalled with a touch of melancholia. That wasn’t the problem that ultimately had come between them. They’d differed over Makkathran’s unification. How he wanted to go about creating an atmosphere of trust, how to use family and political supporters and those who eagerly sought the Waterwalker’s patronage, building so many allies and seeding the districts with unity groups so that the outcome would be inevitable. She never fully agreed with the concept, regarding it as a form of domination.

What Kanseen did not understand and he could never explain was just how badly wrong the nice and open and honest approach had gone-twice in a row. How the time before, the one after the whole Oberford tower disaster, the method of inclusion, which he’d so carefully crafted from his horrendous experience with the nest and had given freely so Querencia might live as one, had been warped and subverted by the malcontents of the emerging generation of strong psychics (and Ranalee, of course) to build new, small versions of the nest centered on themselves in what was almost a reprise of Tathal’s time. Bitter struggles ensued, tipping the world yet again into chaos and hurt, leaving him with no choice this time around but to launch the unification in a way that enabled his governance to be paramount. Restricting dissent was a small price to pay for such an achievement. Even now, strong psychics in eight provinces had managed to subvert the gift, declaring independence from Makkathran’s benign governorship-the Waterwalker’s menacing empire, as they called it. Their own petty little fiefdoms were hardly beacons of enlightenment. He was still considering if and how he should move against them; as with the original nest, they wouldn’t allow anyone to leave of his or her own free will.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” Hilitte asked, suffused with concern.

“I’m fine.”

She struck a sultry pose under the shower. “You want me to bring the girls in?”

“We did enough of that last night, and we will again tonight. I’m going to get breakfast now.” He stepped out of the bath and snagged a big towel with his third hand. Behind him Hilitte gave a small pout and ordered the shower off.

That was the one trouble with her, he realized: She really was too young to be anything but a bedmate. He couldn’t talk to her about anything, exchange ideas, argue problems through, reminisce about events. They never went to the Opera House together, and she swiftly grew bored at the more formal dinner parties he was constantly invited to-so much so that she rarely went to any these days, which was just as well. But she did have a delectably dirty mind and a complete lack of inhibition. It all came as something of a revelation after being married for so long. However unfair that was to Kristabel, Hilitte’s bedroom antics provided a grand way of getting his mind off the troubles of the day.

Which makes her more convenient than visiting the House of Blue Petals. Not necessarily cheaper, though.

Breakfast was taken in the huge state dining room with its long roof forever showing intense orange images of the sun’s corona from the vantage point of some endless orbit a million miles above the seething surface. Underneath the fluctuating glare, the long polished black ash table was capable of hosting city banquets for a hundred fifty guests. This morning it had been set for the two of them. The kitchen staff had laid out big silver ice-bed platters on one of the dozen bolnut veneer sideboards, laden with an array of cold smoked meats cut as thin as parchment. Petal-pattern segments of fruit, cheeses, and glass jugs of yogurt were laid out next to them like small works of art. Warm dishes contained scrambled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon and sausages, and crisped mashed potatoes. Five earthenware pots contained the mixes of cereal, and a small charcoal grill was ready to toast any of the five different types of bread or warm his croissants for him.

Edeard sat down and stared over at the ridiculously extravagant spread of food without really registering any of it. He directed a ge-chimp to bring him a tall glass of apple juice and a bowl of cereal. Hilitte sat next to him, dressed in a thick toweling robe with fluffy pink house socks. She gave him a warm smile before issuing a whole batch of instructions to the ge-chimps.

They ate in silence for a few minutes as Edeard considered what he was going to ask the Skylords. He was sure they’d be in range by the following morning or a day later at the least.

What could possibly have upset their pattern? Change originated from him; he’d traveled back to start again enough times to know that by now. Everyone else would just carry on as before unless he did something to alter their paths through life. It was influence that mattered the most: He did something different, so the lives of the people interacting with him altered to varying degrees, and so the effect spread out like a sluggish ripple. The major difference he’d made each time since the epic voyage around the world was to explain how the Skylords didn’t need the towers of Eyrie to accept people for guidance, which out in the provinces always led to a rush to build some kind of homage tower in every town and city, to the detriment of the economy. His repeated clarification that it didn’t need to be a tower, just a broad open space for people to gather, was always blithely ignored (witness the tax revolt following the Great Tower of Guidance fiasco).

For all the change he brought, it was only lives he affected; he couldn’t change the weather or make the planets orbit any differently. So why are there only two this time?

The only possible answer was one he simply couldn’t accept.

Dinlay arrived soon after Edeard started munching away on his second slice of toast. The Chief Constable’s humor was as pleasant as always. Dinlay had joined the unification almost unknowingly and certainly very willingly; the acceptance of such a gentle universal communion was after all the thing his subconscious had yearned for all these years. Even then, some things about Dinlay had never altered.

Edeard watched closely for any sign of envy or jealousy from his old friend regarding Hilitte (he’d made very sure that this time he was the first to meet her as soon as she arrived in Makkathran armed with her mother’s lists of contacts). That old Ashwell optimism just never dies, does it? But no, Dinlay was unconcerned by Edeard’s latest girl; after all, he’d just married Folopa, who was a lofty catch even by his standards.