Orin did not stop talking for three hours, and Kael did not want him to.They sat by the spring at Sootwater, in the thin gold light of late afternoon, with the old man propped against a fallen log and his splinted leg stretched out before him. Widow Harrow had already scolded him twice for sitting up, and he had ignored her twice. He told the story the way he told everything, in order, in a flat even voice, without ornament. But he kept stopping, and starting again, and looking at Kael as if to make sure he was still there."I was twenty years old," he said. "The youngest man in the western picket. Captain Hale picked me because I could keep my mouth shut. That was the only talent I had.""You were a sergeant.""I was a corporal. Vale exaggerates. It's an Imperial habit." A dry breath. "I was in the ditch on the south bank at dawn, because Mace had sent me to check the water. I saw him loose the arrow. I saw it go into the line, and I saw Tam fall, and I understood what it was before

On the fourth day the notices began.Aurelia saw the first one at a crossroads inn at dawn, nailed to a post beside a rain-washed milestone. Kael saw it a moment later and went very still. It was the same rough paper as the Wolf poster at the ford, but the face on it was not his.It was hers.The artist had done her a kindness. The portrait was a little too pretty, with her hair in a neat coil and her eyes wide and gentle. Above it, in bold black letters, ran six lines of print.BY ORDER OF THE REGENCY COUNCIL OF THE LION EMPIRE. HER HIGHNESS PRINCESS AURELIA HAS BEEN ABDUCTED BY WOLF SORCERY AND IS BEING HELD AGAINST HER WILL. ANY CITIZEN WHO SIGHTS HER IS TO REPORT TO THE NEAREST GARRISON. REWARD FOR HER SAFE RETURN: TEN THOUSAND GOLD LIONS. HER CAPTORS ARE TO BE TAKEN ALIVE OR DEAD.Below it, in smaller print, a single line. The Emperor is indisposed."Abducted," said Sorrel. He had read it aloud twice, with growing admiration. "That's very neat. He doesn't have to accuse you of tr

Lord Cressin did not attack.That was what Aurelia could not stop thinking about, afterward. He stood in the lane in the thin lamplight with his notebook open and two hundred men spread behind him in the dark, and he spoke to the chapel door as though he were paying a call. He had brought a camp stool. A servant unfolded it for him. He sat down on it, crossed his legs, and waited for someone to answer.Aurelia stood just inside the door with her ear against the wood. Kael had come down from the bell tower in a single leap and now stood beside her, his hand on the Wolf's sword. Tavian was at the other side of the frame. Nobody breathed."Highness," called Cressin. "I am so sorry to disturb you at this hour."She did not answer."I shall be brief. I have two hundred of the Regency's finest soldiers around this building. I have eleven hounds. I have every alley and every roof for a quarter mile, and I have been told by a very reliable source that the chapel has a single cellar door, whic

The clans came to Solhaven at dusk, and the city came out to watch them.Aurelia stood in the shadow of the great gate with Tavian beside her and a borrowed hood pulled low. She had not slept. She had walked the length of the old quarter at midday with Sorrel to find the Fox delegation's outriders, and again at three, and again at five, and each time the crowds in the streets had been a little thicker. Nobody spoke. Nobody cheered. They simply stood along the Avenue of Suns in their heavy winter coats, row on row, with their children on their shoulders and the marigold petals of the anniversary long since trampled to brown mud, and waited."They've never seen anything like it," Tavian murmured."No.""Neither have I."It came up the road in the last red light, a slow, silent river of people.First walked the Foxes, in grey and green, with lanterns on long poles. At their head went a small woman in a plain gown, with a velvet cushion in her arms. Ysolde did not look at the crowd. She l