Leodan nodded. It was his wish, but he knew that several times before Aushenia had nearly formed an alliance with Acacia, only to have it scuttled by some minor dispute. Everything he had thus far heard about the young prince Igguldan was promising, but still there were aspects of such an alliance that he did not wish to think about. He changed the subject, although his thoughts did not stray far from the things that troubled him. “The other day Mena asked about the Retribution.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing. Why should she learn that she has the blood of mass murderers in her veins? It was long ago, and we are no longer like that.”

“You are right that it was long ago,” Thaddeus said. “Twenty-two generations…What child can comprehend that?”

The king recalled that when Mena had asked the question, he had glimpsed something less than faith in his daughter’s eyes, less than complete acceptance of his claims. And was not that astute of her? He had, after all, uttered yet another barefaced lie. The Retribution has no bearing on our lives? A blatant untruth spoken with a silvered tongue. How much longer could he get away with such things? It was not just Mena, of course, who had begun to question. Aliver had for some time carried an uncertainty and distrust behind his eyes that seemed ever ready to burst forth.

The chancellor said, “I should mention that the convener called for the governors to intercede in the case the Prios miners have filed against the-”

“Must I deal with that? I hate anything to do with the mines.”

“Fine. We can let the governors handle it. There is something that they cannot handle, though.” Thaddeus pursed his lips, waited for the king to meet his gaze. “The league representatives want to verify that you are truly going to reject the Lothan Aklun demand to increase the Quota.”

The statement was nearly enough to clear the king’s head of the drug’s dulling effects. The Lothan Aklun…the agreement known as the Quota…These two things were the great, disguised sin of the Akaran Empire. Leodan sucked on his pipe. He had a momentary wish that this matter be handled by the governors. In truth, these representatives from the provinces, based in the thronging city of Alecia, handled most of the practical matters of the empire. But Tinhadin, the early king who was in many ways the chief architect of the Akaran Empire, had written the Quota guidelines with explicit simplicity. Control, authority, responsibility-all rested on the monarch’s shoulders, a secret known by many but owned by him alone. For that reason, the management of it was handled by the palace. It was paid for through a separate budget and accounted separately from any other arm of the government. It was not spoken of except in closed circles, and the actual machinations of it happened far away, unseen by the king, although often imagined. No matter how he studied the ancient texts, the exact details of how the arrangement had been reached seemed jumbled to Leodan. The substance, however, could be understood.

Tinhadin, having inherited his father’s newly won throne and outliving his brothers, found himself prosecuting wars on several fronts. The Wars of Distribution, as they were called, marked a strained and tumultuous time. His former ally, Hauchmeinish of the Mein, was now an enemy. He no longer trusted his faithful sorcerers, the Santoth. Provincial rebellions flared up like wildfires on the Acacian hills during the summer. His own understanding of the world was warped and horrific, and he struggled with a belief that any word uttered from his mouth might change the fabric of existence. He was a Santoth as well, the greatest of them, but the burden of the magic on his tongue had become a torture to control.

Into this came a new threat from across the Gray Slopes. There was a power, Tinhadin learned, greater than his own. They were called the Lothan Aklun. They were of the Other Lands, outside the Known World, separated from them by a great ocean. They were a complete mystery to the early king. Their power was nothing really but a claim, but Tinhadin did not want another enemy at that time. He made overtures of peace with them, suggesting trade and mutual gain instead of conflict. The Lothan Aklun not only jumped at the offer, they proposed specifics Tinhadin could not have imagined on his own.

The agreement must have seemed a bargain at the time. The Lothan Aklun promised not to attack the war-ravaged land and agreed to only ever trade with Akarans. All they needed to assure this beneficence was a yearly shipment of child slaves, with no questions asked, no conditions imposed on what they did with them, and with no possibility that the children would ever see Acacia again. In return for this they offered Tinhadin the mist, a tool that, they promised, he would find most helpful in sedating his fractious wards. It was fine-tuned later, but on these basic terms the deal was agreed. Since then, thousands upon thousands of the Known World’s children had been shipped into bondage, and millions under Akaran rule had given over their lives and labors and dreams to the fleeting visions brought on by the mist. The same drug Leodan Akaran inhaled nightly. Such was the truth of Acacia.

“Demand?” Leodan finally asked. “You call it a demand?”

“In tone, yes, my lord, it does have the ring of belligerent certainty to it.” “Lothan belligerence is nothing new,” Leodan said. “It’s nothing new… They already have my people’s souls. What more do they want? The Lothan Aklun are no better than any of the riffraff surrounding us: the miners, the merchants, the league themselves. None of them is content from one moment to the next. I may have never set eyes on a Lothan, but I know them well. Tell the league to take this message to them: the Quota stays as it always has been. The agreement was binding into perpetuity, made before my time to stretch beyond it; I do not accept any change, now or ever.”

He said this with finality, but he did not seem to like the silence Thaddeus responded with. “There is something else we should speak about,” Leodan said. “I received a letter this morning from Leeka Alain of the Northern Guard. He had it sent to a merchant in the lower town, who got it to me through the house servants. All very unusual.”

“Yes, quite odd.” Thaddeus cleared his throat, first softly and then through several louder coughs. “What has the soldier to say?”

“It was a strange letter, full of import but vague on details. He wanted to know if I had received a messenger he sent earlier. A Lieutenant Szara. By the sound of it, this messenger was dispatched with some grave message.”

Thaddeus watched the king. “Have you received such a message?”

“You know the answer to that. It would have come to me through you.”

“Of course, but I have heard nothing of this. Did Leeka reveal the details of the message in the letter?”

“No. He does not trust the written word.”

“He should not. Once written, anyone could read it.”

The king’s eyes moved slowly, heavily. They swung around on the chancellor and studied him, clouded by the drug but still able to focus. The man’s face was calm, although tense across the forehead. “Yes, perhaps…I do wonder why he chose to correspond with me instead of through the governor. I know he has no fondness for Rialus Neptos; I do not either, for that matter. Do you know that Rialus used to write me at least twice yearly, extolling his virtues and hinting that he should be recalled from the Mein and given some higher appointment here in Acacia? As if I want him sulking around the palace. He points out that he is of pure Acacian ancestry, says the climate of the Mein damages his health. I cannot argue with that, really; it is a miserable place… Anyway, Leeka wished to communicate directly tome, and that makes me curious. Where is this Szara?”

Thaddeus lifted his shoulders to his ears, then dropped them. “I know nothing, but even in these peaceful times ill things happen. It is the dead of winter. That means little here, but in the highlands of the Mein the weather would be most foul. How was she meant to travel? On horseback or down the River Ask?”