“I already have agents prepared to pounce on the king. They might have killed him already. Word of it may already be on the way to Hanish.”

“No, no…I know that,” Rialus said. He almost felt like smiling, knowing that in all likelihood he had thrown himself just the lifeline he needed. “I do not mean the king. The line of Akaran does not begin and end with Leodan.”

Corinn Akaran understood that there was much she did not know about the world, many names and family lineages and historical events that refused to stick in her memory. No matter. Very little of it had any bearing on her everyday life. What she believed was of significance was that she was King Leodan’s eldest daughter, the beautiful one at that. She did not stand to inherit control of her father’s realm-that went to Aliver-but this suited her as well. She found nothing enticing about the prospect of juggling such a complicated array of concerns. Better to stand just to the side and wield her influence within the sphere of courtly intrigue. She was sure that this would prove more interesting. The world might have been a large thing in fact, but the part of it she occupied was smaller, and in that smaller world few people were better placed than she to look toward the future with sublime optimism.

She did, however, harbor a secret that none of those close to her would have guessed at. Though by nature a jovial person with an affinity for fine clothes, gossip, and youthful romantic musings, she bore an awareness of death with her. It was a cloud that hung in the back of her mind, always near, there to threaten when she raised her eyes to take in larger things. Her mother had died when she was ten. Since then the curse of mortality had never been far from her mind. Aleera Akaran had faded from life as the spring gave way to summer. She was eaten from the inside by an illness that began as a backache and became an insatiable leech sucking the life from her.

Corinn remembered the last moments she spent with her mother in excruciating detail. In dreams she often sat beside her bed again, her palms clasped around the wan skin and bones of the woman’s hands. Her body was so ravaged it seemed to have half melted into her mattress. Because the weather had been warm, she had often lain uncovered, her bare legs stretching out from beneath her frock, her feet and toes seeming unnaturally large now that they were the first thing Corinn saw on entering the room. Her weeks being bed bound made Aleera so feeble that she could not reach her window stool without her daughter’s help. Her feet no longer knew how to find the floor. Corinn would stand supporting her mother’s frail weight as with each step her heel drew circles in the air, as might a child who was taking her first steps.

All of this converging on the young girl struck her with the realization that the world held more frightening things in reality than it did in her darkest imaginings. Where in this picture was the all-powerful mother who always knew her daughter’s mind before she spoke it, who laughed at Corinn’s fears of dragons, giant snakes, and monsters? Where was the hero who chased such creatures away just by entering the room, just by smiling, just by calling her name? Where was the beauty at whose elbow Corinn had sat as she was groomed for official functions, the woman against whom all others had been measured? It still amazed her that things had changed so rapidly, without even a veiled suggestion that there was meaning to it all.

As painful as this was, it was compounded by the fact that she saw herself in each portion of her mother’s dying body. Her mother had given her the shape of her face, the character of her lips, the pattern of lines across her forehead. They had the same hands: the same rate of taper and length, the same character to the knuckles, the same thin fingernails, the same off-kilter slant to the small finger. The girl of ten had held between her palms an aged, decaying, fading grip on herself, like some strange conflation of the past with the present or the present with the future.

Though she often schemed the days away with youthful optimism, part of her was nagged by the fear that she would not live out the year. Or if she did it would be only so that she would first gain everything, then lose it all, then die. She had felt this way when she was ten, and then eleven and twelve and so on, but still the feeling was as strong as ever. The fact that she balanced these morbid thoughts with an otherwise effervescent nature was as confusing to her as it would have been to those who viewed her from the outside. She hid her darker musings as best she could, both alarmed by and ashamed of them. She often reminded herself that every living being faced death; few of them were offered a life of such rich potential as she. And perhaps she was wrong. Maybe she would live a long and joyful existence; maybe she would even find a way to live forever, ageless and untouched by illness.

On the morning that she was to greet a delegation from the nation of Aushenia, Corinn stared for a long time into the mirror of her dressing table, gazing at her reflection. She reached down and plucked up a horsehair brush used for applying face makeup. She dipped it in a powder made of crushed seashells and flicked the bristles over her cheeks. She hoped the sparkles would complement the glint of silvery fibers in her dress, a sleek, sky-blue gown that hugged her figure. Despite her morbid thoughts, she was pleased with the prospects for the next few days. She did not-like Aliver-have to sit through the inane formalities of the official meetings. But unlike Mena and Dariel she was old enough to function in some official capacity. This time she was to serve as host and guide to the Aushenian prince, Igguldan.

Despite her maid’s warning that the day would be chilly she wore only a thin shift beneath her dress. She could put up with cold, she said; she could not stomach looking frumpy. As her single concession to the weather she decided to wear a new item just sent to her from Candovia, a white fur band worn around the neck and fastened snug with clasps. She thought the scarf achieved a sort of elegance. She hoped so, for she was not as adept at dressing for chilly weather as she was at dealing with the three seasons of warmth Acacia offered.

Corinn met the Aushenian prince on the steps of Tinhadin’s hall. She stood surrounded by several attendants, a translator, and a few aides from the chancellor’s office. All of them were framed by the granite pillars of the hall’s faзade, rough-hewn and veined with age and weather wear. Of an earlier architectural vintage than most of the city, the hall had been built back when the nation’s leaders seemed to look askance at the smooth lines and arches of cultured cities like those of the Talayan coast, which later generations took inspiration from.

The prince was dressed simply. Corinn might have found this disappointing, but his actions demonstrated such practiced reverence that she had to acknowledge his manners were impeccable. He walked with downturned eyes, his arms pressed tight to his sides and his palms tilted toward her. Both he and his party timed the placement of their feet as they climbed, so that they moved as of one mind. Once the young man reached the step below her he paused. His gaze lifted up, met hers, and held it just slightly longer than appropriate. She found herself inclined to forgive him, both because of the timorous, creased smile that he wore and because she knew that her gown and the white fur ring around her neck and the intricate braidwork of her hair and the sparkling seashell powder that highlighted her cheeks had all combined to impressive effect.

Igguldan’s features were famously Aushenian: his hair like straw dipped in auburn dye, his eyes intensely blue, as if they were flecked glass beads lit from behind. Corinn had once thought pale, freckled skin to be lacking compared to the creamy brown of Acacians or the near black of Talayans, but looking at Igguldan she felt drawn to just this feature. She wanted to reach out and touch him just under the eye and to move her finger from one dot to the next.