The note, which he glanced at one last time, went thus: If it comes that you must, send them to the four winds. Send them to the four winds, as we spoke of, my friend.

Having read it again, he loosed it from his fingers at such an angle that it slipped into the fire. It landed at the edge of the logs, and for a moment he thought he would have to nudge it with the poker. But then it caught, flared, and curled and blackened. As quickly as that, it was gone. He turned from the fire and rounded his desk, unsure what he was to do next, but thinking he might face it best if he looked the part of a chancellor at his duties. It was then that he saw the envelope.

It was a single white square at the center of the polished wooden expanse of his desk. It should not have been there. It had not been included in his earlier mail delivery, and if it was meant for him personally it would normally have been delivered into his hands. If he had been cold before, he felt himself made of ice now. He did not touch the envelope but lowered himself stiffly into his chair. The leather protested his weight at first, but then yielded to accommodate him, as it had for so many years.

He broke the envelope’s seal with his fingernail and read the message. The king is dead, it began. You had no hand in it. The credit goes only to my brother. If you are wise, you will feel neither guilt nor joy. But now, Thaddeus, you should think of your future. Turn your attention to the children. I want them, and I want them alive. Give them to me alive and you will have riches along with your revenge. This I promise you. He paused on the signature at the end and stared at it as if it were not a name at all but some word he had forgotten the meaning of. It was signed, Hanish, of the Mein.

There was a noise in the hallway. Thaddeus pressed the letter between his palm and his thigh. Two men walked by outside, talking, their forms visible for a split second through the narrow vantage into the passageway. Then they were gone. Thaddeus pinched out the corners of the message and sat with it bridged between his knees.

He sat for some time, his mind drifting to old memories, unhinged for a time from the dueling things being demanded of him. But then he felt the shift in the breath of the air that meant the king’s door had opened. He could delay no longer. He rose, took the second note to the hearth, and let it slide from his fingers into the fire. He turned to go once more to his old friend. He would take him his pipe and bid him farewell, and then he would decide the fate of the Akaran children.

From Cathgergen several messenger birds of a short-winged northern variety progressed across the Mein in small bites. Each found waypoints that were little more than rock outcroppings amid the sea of ice and snow, low hovels inside which lone men huddled beside wire cages, cooing and stroking the pigeons they tended, long-haired hermits connected to the world of other humans only by the birds themselves. This route was an old one, established long ago and known only to the few living souls that made it function. It worked with surprising dependability. Because of this an avian courier arrived in Tahalian only four days after being dispatched from the mild climes of Acacia, a fraction of what it would have taken a human to travel the same distance.

As the bird landed in one part of Tahalian, folded its wings, curled its trembling feet around its perch, and offered up its burden to yet another handler, the intended recipient of the message rose from a three-legged stool in a sunken arena carved into the fields behind the stronghold, a space called the Calathrock. The structure was the work of hundreds of men over scores of years. Constructed of massive hardwood trunks, the beams of the arena interlocked to arching effect, jointed with iron cuffs, suspended above an area five hundred yards square. It was high and wide enough to host military maneuvers, marching drills, and weapons training. Even full battles were replicated undercover, hidden from prying eyes, protected from the weather. It was a functional monument to a military cause. And also it was a secret pride of a race of people no longer officially permitted either secrets or pride. Grand as it was, on this occasion the Calathrock hosted a contest between just two men.

Hanish Mein stepped to the center of the circle left open for him. He bowed to the man sworn to kill him and nodded that he was ready to begin the Maseret dance. Hanish was of medium stature, slimly formed, in a short skirt and thalba, a garment made of a single sheet of thin, tanned leather that had been wrapped around his torso with the aid of servants, leaving his arms unencumbered. He wore his hair shorter than most men of the Mein, clipped close to the sides and under the rear curve of the skull. Only his braids dropped down to his shoulder, three in total, two of them woven with caribou hide, one with green silk. His features seemed sculpted with the objective of focusing attention on his eyes: wide forehead lined with hair-thin creases, tilted cheekbones, an aquiline nose that was somewhat shallow at the bridge. One of his nostrils bore a tiny scar. His skin had a smooth milkiness to it, nowhere more so than in the flesh just below his lower eyelids. These, when caught in the right light, positively glowed, highlighting the gray orbs above them, giving them a quality that strangers often mistook for dreaminess.

The soldier facing Hanish was taller than the chieftain by a head, a long-limbed man who bore his size well. He was stiffly muscled, with hair the brilliant blond so loved by his race. He wore two braids woven with green silk, indicating that he had danced these steps before and lived to tell of it. He was a well-respected warrior who had sat beside Hanish during the years of slow germination of their plans. He had overseen the training of the secret army under Hanish’s direction. Only now, on the eve of the onslaught, did his ambition drive him to challenge his chieftain.

Arrayed around the two figures in a crescent stood a handful of attendants, officers of the Mein; the chief Maseret instructor; a surgeon; and a ring of Punisari, the special forces here serving as royal bodyguards. Also among them were two hooded priests of the Tunishnevre. One of them waited to spirit the body of whichever dancer was slain into the sacred chamber, so that he might immediately join his ancestors. The other stood prepared to say rites of royalty if the challenger prevailed and therefore stepped in to fill Hanish’s place as chieftain. Haleeven, Hanish’s closest adviser, stood just at the edge of the group. He was a short man by Mein standards, but thick and powerful in a bearlike way, with a prominent, frost-pocked nose and a crimson lace of blood vessels etched across his upper cheeks. He was the young leader’s uncle.

Beyond this inner circle the Calathrock thronged with fighting men. Thousands of soldiers stood armored for battle, their weapons in hand or strapped on their backs, a good ten thousand pairs of blue-gray eyes. Each of them had flaxen hair that almost to a man they wore in the traditional, matted style of Meinish warriors. This was not a particularly unusual event, but it never failed to stir the blood of each and every man fortunate enough to watch. Hanish held his arms up in answer to their calls. He knew why they yelled so loudly, and he wished them to see that he foremost among them believed in the Maseret. A strong people deserved a strong leader, one not afraid to be tested. He asked himself to let slip his love of life, to let slip fear, to let slip desire. He released everything that made lesser men prey to errors so that he might function better and be blessed to remember these things later.