“Ah. I understand now. How many have you lost, then?”

“Two. Both stillborn.” I handed her an embroidered handkerchief from a stack of them beside the bed. She blew her nose.

“It’s a terrible thing to lose a child at birth.”

Philomena glanced up quickly, as if it had just occurred to her who was sitting at her bedside. She pulled the red satin coverlet tightly to her chin.

“I mean you no harm, Philomena. What Tomas did wasn’t entirely his fault. Certainly, I hold neither you nor your son responsible.”

Months ago, even before Tomas was free from his corrupting blindness, he had begged me to return to Comigor, hoping that I could protect his child from some unnamable evil. I had refused him then. I had seen no reason to heed my brother’s fears when my brother had watched my husband tortured and burned alive for being born a sorcerer. I had seen no reason why I should care for my brother’s child when my brother’s knife had slit my own newborn son’s throat, lest he inherit his gentle father’s magical gifts. How had Tomas reconciled what he had done? Madness, enchantment-I had to believe that. It was the only way I could forgive him.

She averted her gaze. “Tomas’s men brought your message when they brought the news that he was dead. I thought you were trying to make me afraid.”

“Let’s not speak of those things now. If the physician has sent you to bed, then I’m sure it’s for the child’s health, and not because of any danger to your own. If your back hurts, perhaps it’s because you have so many pillows so awkwardly arranged.” I reached around her and pulled about half of them away, straightening the others so she could change position without being smothered. I had Nancy bring a warmed towel, which I rolled into a firm cylinder and inserted behind Philomena’s back.

“Oh! That’s marvelously better.”

“Good. Nancy can replace the towel whenever you wish. Now you should rest. When you’re awake again, I’ll tell you and your son what I’ve come to tell you of Tomas.”

“It won’t bring him back,” said Philomena, settling into her nest and yawning.

“No,” I said, feeling guilty at the joyous anticipation that prickled the boundaries of my skin. Ten years after his horrific death, my husband had indeed been brought back to life, a mystery and a marvel I could not yet fully comprehend. Only a few months had passed since Midsummer’s Day, when a sorcerer prince with a damaged memory had intruded on my life. Only a few weeks had passed since the day I realized that somehow Karon lived again within that prince, and a sorcerer named Dassine had confirmed my guess. At the end of that day, when the two of them had walked through the fiery Gate of D’Arnath’s Bridge and vanished, Karon could not yet remember either his own life or that of D’Natheil, the Prince of Avonar, in whose body he now existed. But Dassine had assured me that Karon’s recovery was only a matter of time and work and sorcery. He would come back. He would know me again.

Sighing deeply, Philomena dropped off to sleep. To look on her drew me back to the lingering grief that even such a miracle as Karon’s life could not allay. Philomena had a living son.

Appointing Nancy to guard the bedchamber, I wandered out into the passage and gazed from the top of the stairs into the great echoing well of the entry tower. Hazy beams of sunlight poured through the tall, narrow windows. This tower was young by the standards of Comigor history, but Tomas and I had found it marvelous as children. The giant black and gray slate squares of the floor tiles had been a magnificent venue for a hundred games. Our favorite was chess, and we were forever coaxing servants, visitors, dogs, and cats into our games as living chess pieces. When the light was just right, the thick, leaded panes of the high windows would transform the sunbeams into a rainbow. I would sit at the top of the stair and let my imagination sail up the shafts of red and blue and violet to places far beyond the lonely countryside of my home.

At no time in all my girlhood dreaming had I ever imagined anything resembling the strange courses of my life, or the mysteries of a universe that was so much larger than I had been taught. Wonder enough that I had married a sorcerer, reviled as evil incarnate by the priests and people of the Four Realms. But in these past months I had learned that another world existed beyond the one we knew-a world called Gondai, embroiled in a long and terrible war, a world of sorcerers, the world of my husband’s people, though he and his ancestors, exiled in this most unmagical of realms, had forgotten it.

Lost in reminiscence, I made my way down the stairs. Just off the entry tower, near the bottom of the stair, was my father’s library, one of my favorite rooms in the house. I laid my hand on the brass handle of the library door…

“Now just hold there a moment, young woman,” spoke a crusty, quavering voice from behind me. A familiar voice. “Might I ask who you are and what business you have in the duke’s library, much less ordering the servants about like you was mistress here?”

I smiled as I spun about to face her. “Was I not always the one to get my way, Nellia?”

The elderly woman was propped up on a walking stick, but she came near toppling over backward in surprise. “Seriana! May the gods strike me blind and dumb if it not be my darling girl… after so long and so dark a road… oh my…” She fumbled at her pockets.

I caught hold of her and guided her to a leather-covered bench. “I was beginning to doubt there was any familiar face to be found here, but if I were to choose one to see, it would be yours. It makes me think the place must be properly run after all.”

“Oh, child, what a blessing it is to see you. There’s none but me left that you’d know, to be sure. The mistress”- the word was dressed with scorn enough to tell me the old woman’s opinion of Tomas’s wife-“brought mostly her own people from the city. She was of a mind to dismiss us all. But His Grace, your brother, wouldn’t allow her to send me away, nor John Hay nor Bets Sweeney, the sewing woman. But you can see as things are sadly out of sorts. The new girls care only for the mistress and her things. John Hay died two years ago, and Bets is pensioned off to live with her daughter in Graysteve, so I’m all as is left. Little worth in me neither. But these eyes is good enough to see my little sprite come home when I never thought she would.”

She patted my knee and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Shall I have one of the girls open up your room? I’ve kept it set to rights in hopes you and your brother might make it up between you. We never believed what was said about you. Great wickedness we were told, but I knew my little Seri could no more do a great wickedness than she could eat a frog. The master wouldn’t speak of it. And mistress-well, she has little good to say of anybody- and so’s Bets and John Hay and myself would never credit ought she said of you.” Quite breathless, Nellia stopped. Waiting, perhaps…

The tales she’d heard of me were likely quite wicked- treason, heresy, consorting with sorcerers and all the evils attendant on such sordid association-crimes that would have cost my life had my brother not been the boyhood friend and sword champion of the King of Leire.

I wrapped my arm about her bony shoulders. “You mustn’t worry about anything you’ve heard. It was all a terrible misunderstanding. And I appreciate so much that you’ve cared for my things, but I’m not to stay. I’ve only come to speak to Philomena and her son. I was with Tomas when he died, and all was well between us at the last.”

Nellia’s pink-rimmed eyes filled with tears. “I’m glad to hear it. He was always a prideful boy, and the same as a man. Never learned to bend. Came by most everything as was his desire, but he’d no peace from it. Broke my heart it did, who knew him from a babe, to see him so high, but troubled so sore.”

“But his son-he spoke of him with great affection. Surely the boy brought him happiness.”

The old woman frowned and shook her head. “You’ve not met the young master, then?”

“No. I’ve been here only half an hour.”

“It’s right to say the duke-may holy Annadis write his name-took pride in the boy and had great hopes for him, but he’s not an easy child.”

“Tomas and I weren’t easy either.”

The old lady chuckled. “No. Easy was ne’er a word used in the servants’ hall about either of you, but this one… Well, you must meet him.” She glanced up and wrinkled her brow. “Shall I find out where he is?”

“I think it would be prudent if we were introduced in Lady Philomena’s presence.” I desired no personal relationship with the boy.

“That mightn’t be easy. He’s not one to sit at his mother’s knee or-” She broke off and waved a hand. “Ach, I’m too free. You must be perishing thirsty, and hungry, too, I’d guess. Shall I have a tray brought to the library?”

“That would be marvelous. And it would be kind if you would send someone to your mistress’s room to tell Nancy where I can be found. I’d like to know when the duchess wakes.”

“Done, my dearie.” Nellia wiped her eyes once more, patted my hands, and hobbled away.

My father’s library was almost the same as I remembered it-leather chairs, dark woods, and ceiling-high shelves stuffed with leather-bound books and rolled manuscripts. On the end wall farthest from the hearth was his giant map of the Four Realms: our own Leire colored in red, subject kingdoms Valleor in blue, Kerotea in brown, and the ever-rebellious Iskeran in yellow. And yet a great deal of dust lay about, along with a general air of neglect. The tables and desks had seen no oil or polish; the brass lamps were tarnished; and my father would have threatened to behead the hapless servant who had allowed the bindings of his books to crack or his priceless maps to curl in their display.

My father had been, first and foremost, a warrior. For twenty years he had fought his sovereign’s battles with skill and pride, always with more notches on his sword than his most grizzled veterans. But even more than fighting and glory, he had relished strategy and tactics, the marvelous interplay of soldier and general. Though not a scholarly man, he had accumulated a library of military history and philosophy unrivaled even at the University in Yurevan. He had collected maps, too, of all known lands and seas, ranging from ancient, primitive brushstrokes on silk or parchment that would crumble at a whisper to the most detailed, modern charts made by King Gevron’s military cartographers.