After, Purvis escorted the imperial advisers from the audience hall, then out of the manse and back into the night. Loralon and Dista took their leave, returning to their quarters to find some rest before the new day. Kurnos didn’t retire, however- sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, he lingered in the Temple’s gardens, wandering the snowy paths about the gleaming basilica. This time he hardly noticed the chill in the air, and he also took no notice of the monks and knights who passed him as he walked. His mind roiled, the thoughts coming back and back again to the same four words:

I will be Kingpriest.

It had always been a possibility-in Paladine’s church, he was second in stature to the man who sat the throne-but he had never truly credited that it would happen. The Kingpriest usually chose a patriarch from one of the empire’s provinces to wear the crown after him, as a way of maintaining the peace. Symeon himself had been high priest of Ismin, to the west, until his own coronation. Anyway, Kurnos was past his fiftieth year and had been sure he would grow into an old man by the time the Kingpriest died.

All those assumptions had crumbled now, replaced by a thrill that plunged through him like a silver arrow. He was the heir. Before long, the powers of church and empire would be his to wield. It was an intoxicating thought, arousing a hunger that had lain dormant in him for many years. He thought of the power that came with the Kingpriest’s sapphire tiara and felt giddy. All the things he could accomplish!

A glimmer of light caught his attention, and he stopped in his tracks, looking up. The sky was clearing now-the snow had stopped, he wasn’t sure when-and through the garden’s trees the velvet black of night was giving way to violet. The red and silver moons hung low in the east, both razor-thin crescents, and beneath them, the clouds were glowing saffron. He blinked. Dawn had been hours away when he’d left the manse. Had he truly wandered the Temple’s gardens so long?

As he was wondering, a dulcet sound arose from the basilica: the chiming of silver bells within the Temple’s tall, central spire. The crystal dome caught the sound, ringing to herald the coming dawn, and the Temple grounds suddenly burst into Me as priests and priestesses spilled out of the cloisters, answering the call to morning prayer. Many exclaimed in wonder at the unexpected snowfall, and Kurnos watched as they made their wide-eyed way past him to the basilica.

Suddenly, he began to weep.

He tried to hold it back at first, but soon his cheeks were wet. The tears he shed were not born of sorrow, however, but of joy. He even laughed, his heart singing along with the music of the bells. Smiling, he wiped his eyes, clearing his vision-and stopped, sucking in a sudden breath.

Down the path, in the shadow of a great ebony tree, was something that did not belong in this place: a tail, grim figure swathed in black. It was a man, his dark hood covering his face save for the tip of a thick, gray beard. He stood motionless, and though he couldn’t see the man’s eyes, the First Son was sure the dark-robed figure was looking at him. The chill in the air seemed to sharpen as he met the man’s gaze.

Yes, hissed a cold voice. The hooded head inclined slightly. It will do.

Suddenly terrified, Kurnos cast about, searching for one of the Knights who patrolled the Temple grounds. There was none nearby, though-and what was more, none of the other clerics bustling past seemed to see the shadowy figure at all. Swallowing, Kurnos turned back toward the tree, intending to do something, perhaps cry out…

And stopped. The dark figure was gone.

He stepped forward, peering deeper into the shadows, but there was no sign of the man. Kurnos swallowed, shaken. Perhaps I imagined it, he told himself. I’m tired-jumping at shadows, that’s all.

In his mind, however, the dark figure remained, lurking and watching as he turned toward the basilica to greet his first day as the Kingpriest’s heir.

The drums of war hadn’t sounded in Istar for years.

The empire had not known peace in all that time, of course-goblins and ogres still lurked in the wildlands, for one thing, despite repeated Commandments of Extermination from the Temple, as did cults that worshiped dark gods. And while most realms paid homage to the Kingpriest, some- notably the distant Empire of Ergoth-refused to do so. It was enough to keep the imperial armies from growing idle, but Istaran hadn’t fought Istaran in over half a century, since the end of the Three Thrones’ War.

The Trosedil, as the church tongue named the war, had arisen when three different men, each with their own fol-lowings, laid claim to the throne. Such factional splintering had happened before, when a Kingpriest died with no named heir, but this time it was particularly tragic. For two decades the dispute had bloodied the empire’s fields, until Ardosean IV, also known as Ardosean the Uniter, had defeated his rivals, beheading Vasari II and imprisoning Theorollyn III, thereby becoming the one true sovereign.

With the war’s end, prosperity returned to the empire. Gold flowed freely, filling the coffers of castle and temple alike. By the time the Uniter died, ten years after the Trosedil’s ending, the realm was almost completely healed, the old divisions forgotten.

Not everyone shared in the bounties of peace, however. Taol, westernmost of Istar’s provinces, had no spices, no silks. Its hills yielded copper and iron, not rubies and opals. Its people had been barbarians at the empire’s dawning, until the priests came to pacify them and teach them the ways of Paladine. Even now, they remained simple borderfolk, and though they were poor compared with people who dwelled in the lands to the east, they had long been content with their lot.

Ullas obefat, the old saying said. All things change.

The troubles had begun the previous autumn, with a blight that devastated harvests all over the borderlands. Famine followed, and with it came plague, a terrible sickness called the Longosai-the Slow Creep-that started at the provinces’ fringes and worked its way from town and town as winter came on. When they saw the troubles their people faced, the Taoli nobles had acted quickly, sending riders to the Lordcity to plead for help. Before the messengers could reach the lowlands, however, the snows had come, vicious buzzards that buried the lands and choked the roads. The riders vanished into the storm and were never seen again. The food and healers the borderfolk needed never came. The Longosai spread, made worse by starvation.

Even then, however, matters might have mended, had the first travelers to ride into the highlands when the thaws came been traders, priests, or even Solamnic Knights. Instead, however, it was the Kingpriest’s tax collectors who sojourned to Taol when the roads cleared at last. They came as they always did, at the dawning of springtime, to collect the annual tithe from the borderfolk to bring back to the holy church. What they found instead, however, were sickness, empty larders, and men and women made desperate and angry by suffering.

Inevitably, it came to bloodshed. The Scatas, the blue-cloaked imperial soldiers who accompanied the tax collectors, killed several bordermen who tried to fight The highlanders struck back, slaughtering soldiers and clerics alike. The survivors fled bask to the Lordcity, bringing word of a peasantry risen in revolt. The Kingpriest closed the roads that led to Taol and issued an edict demanding the heads of the rebels’ leaders. By the time the last snows melted, the borderlands were dry tinder, awaiting a spark. The war drums hadn’t sounded in Istar for years. They wouldn’t remain silent much longer.