“He loves the boy, he spared him before,” Andrew protested. Callista pressed her lips tightly together.

“True. But when I was a little girl Father had a favorite hound. He had reared it by hand from a puppy and it slept on his bed at night, and lay at his feet in the Great Hall. When it grew to be an old dog, however, it became vicious. It took to killing animals in the yards, and once it bit Dorian and drew blood. The coridom said it must be destroyed, but he knew how Father loved the old dog, and offered to have it quietly made away with. But Father said, ‘No, this is my affair.’ He went out into the stables, called the brute to him, and when it came he broke its neck with his own hands.” She was silent, thinking of how her Father had cried afterward, the only time she ever saw him weep, except when Coryn died.

But he did not ever shrink from doing what he must.

Damon knew she was right. He might have preferred to spare his father-in-law, but Esteban Lanart was Lord Alton, with wardship, even to life and death, over every man, woman, and child in the Alton Domains. He had never dealt out justice unfairly, but he had never failed to deal it out.

“Come,” he said to Andrew, “we must lay it before him.” But when Callista rose to follow them, he shook his head.

“Breda, this is an affair for men.”

She turned pale with anger. “You dare speak so to me, Damon? Domenic was my brother, so is Dezi. I am an Alton!”

“And I,” said Ellemir, “and my child is next heir after Valdir!”

As they turned to the door, Damon found a snatch of song running in his head, incongruous, with a sweet, mournful memory. After a moment he identified it as the song Callista had begun to sing, and had been rebuked:

Ellemir had spoken more truly than she knew: It was ill-luck for a sister to sing that song in a brother’s hearing. But, looking at the women, Damon thought that like the sister in the old ballad, who had condemned the brotherslayer to outlawry, they would not shrink from the sentence.

It was only a few steps into another part of the suite, but to Damon it seemed a long journey, across a gulf of misery, before they stood before Dom Esteban, who looked at them in bewilderment.

“What means this? Why are you all so solemn? Callista, what is wrong with you, chiya? Elli, have you been crying?”

“Father.” said Callista, white as death, “where is Valdir? And is Dezi near?”

“They are together, I hope. I know you have a grudge against him, Damon,” he said, “but after all, the lad has right on his side. I should have done years ago what I propose to do now. He is not old enough to be regent of the Domain, of course, or Valdir’s guardian, the idea is preposterous, but once acknowledged he will see reason. And then he will be such a brother to Valdir as he was to my poor Domenic.”

“Father,” Ellemir said in a low voice, “that is what we fear.”

He turned to her in anger. “I thought you, at least, would show a sister’s forebearance, Ellemir!” Then he met the eyes of Damon and Andrew, fixed steadily on him. He looked from one to the other and back again, in growing distress and annoyance.

“How dare you!” Then, impatiently, he reached out for contact, read directly from them what they knew. Damon felt the knowledge sink into the old man’s mind in one great surge of pain. It was like death, a blinding moment of physical agony. He felt the old man’s last thought: My heart, my heart is surely breaking. I thought that was only an idle word, but I feel it there, before he slipped into merciful unconsciousness. Andrew, moving swiftly, caught the limp body in his arms as he pitched out of his wheeled chair.

Too shocked to think clearly, he laid him on his bed. Damon was still paralyzed with the backlash of the Alton lord’s pain.

“I think he’s dead,” Andrew said, shocked, but Callista came and felt his pulse, laid her ear briefly against his chest. “No, the heart still beats. Quickly, Ellemir! Run and fetch Ferrika, she is nearest, but one of you men must go down to the Guard Hall and search for Master Nicol.”

She waited beside her father, remembering that Ferrika had warned her about his weakening heart. When the woman came, she confirmed Callista’s fear.

“Something has gone wrong in the heart, Callista.” In her sympathy she forgot the formal “my lady,” remembering that they had played together as children. “He has had too many shocks to endure.” She brought stimulant drugs and when Master Nicol came, between them they managed to get a dose into him.

“It’s touch and go,” the hospital officer warned. “He might die at any moment, or linger like this till Midsummer. Has he had a shock? With respect, Lord Damon, he should have been guarded from the slightest stress or bad news.”

Damon felt like demanding how do you guarded a telepath against evil news. But Master Nicol was doing his best, and he would have had no more answer than Damon himself.

“We will do what we can, Lord Damon, but for now… it is fortunate he had already chosen you regent.”

It was like a flood of ice water. He was regent of Alton, with wardship and sovereignty over the Domain, till Valdir was declared a man.

Regent. With power of life and death.

No, he thought, flinching with revulsion. It was too much. He did not want it.

But looking down at the stricken old man, he knew that duty lay on him. Confronted with proof of Dezi’s treachery, the Alton lord would have acted unflinchingly to protect the children, young boy and unborn babe, who were the next heirs to Alton. As Damon must act…

When Dezi came back with Valdir, he found them all waiting for him.

“Valdir,” said Ellemir gently, “our father lies very ill. Go and find Ferrika and ask news of him.” To their great relief, the child ran off at once, and Dezi stood waiting, defiant.

“So now you have your will, Damon. You are regent of Alton. Or are you? I wonder.”

Damon found his voice. “I am warned, Dezi. You cannot serve me as you served Domenic. As regent of Alton I demand that you give up to me the matrix you stole from Domenic’s body.”

He saw comprehension sweep over Dezi’s face. Then, to Damon’s horror, he laughed. Damon thought he had never heard a sound so shocking as that laughter.

“Come and take it, you Ridenow half-man,” he taunted. “You will not find it so easy this time! You could not take me that way now, even with your Nest about you!” Damon flinched at the ancient obscenity, for the women’s sake. “Come, I called you challenge in Council, let us have it here and now! Which of us is to be regent of Alton? Have you that much strength? Half monk, half eunuch, they call you!”

Damon knew he had picked up the taunt from Lorenz, or was it from Damon himself? He found his voice. “If you kill me, you prove yourself even less fit to be regent. It is not strength alone, but right and responsibility.”

“Oh, have done with that cant!” Dezi scoffed. “Such responsibility, I suppose, as my loving father took for me?”

Damon wanted to say that the dom had truly loved Dezi enough for his treachery almost to kill him too. But he wasted no words, grasping his own matrix, focusing, striking to alter the resonances of the one Dezi wore. Had stolen.

Dezi felt the touch, struck out a blinding mental blow. Damon went physically to his knees before the impact. Dezi had the Alton gift, the anger which could kill. Fighting panic, he realized that Dezi had grown, was stronger. Like a wolf with a taste for man’s flesh, he had to be destroyed at once, lest this ravening beast get among the Comyn…