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her shoulders and lifting her chin, she reminded herself that she was a Judge with six years of experience, that she was a FirstFamily Head, a GrandLady, D’SilverFir.
    She mastered her anxiety and entered the CouncilChamber with a measured, serene step. Tinne escorted her to a chair facing the FirstFamilies Council. She arranged her gown in perfect folds, as she had so often arranged her judicial robes, and sat down. Tinne left the room.
    It had been a long time since she’d visited this room as a very young woman. The marble walls with faint veins of rose and gold still gleamed. The council table was as massive as she remembered. Even the plump red cushions under her gave little ease as she anticipated the next septhour.
    When she looked at the Council, several people were blotting perspiration from their skin and drinking water. All twenty-three of the House heads were there except T’Blackthorn. Instead of his spouse, T’Holly sat with his Heir, Holm.
    Most of the faces were familiar from GreatRituals she’d attended in her youth, before she’d started her rounds outside Druida as a circuit judge. Ailim felt their thoughts as a heavy pressure like lowering storm clouds. The sensation wasn’t as pleasant as the blessed quiet she’d experienced with Ruis Elder in the hallway, but something routine that she could dismiss. She could only discern thoughts from the new D’Ash who manifestly hadn’t learned to completely conceal them.
    D’Ash’s thoughts were amusing. She worried about Ruis, not happy with his banishment and planning how to smuggle a rare cat Fam companion to him. Her strategy was amazing, particularly since she intended to circumvent her husband.
    Bucus T’Elder, Captain of the Council, scowled at Ailim. He had insisted on the latest Family spreadsheets so he could study them before the Council meeting. Since Ailim hadn’t been officially confirmed as D’SilverFir and accepted into the FirstFamilies Council, she could only respond to questions.
    She received telepathic curses from him, due to the way the last decision had gone. He shredded some papyrus in front of him. Lust for Ruis’s death flared around Bucus’s mindshield.
    Ailim shivered.
    Bucus banged his gavel. “As Captain of this Council, I call the final item on our agenda; the request by GrandHouse D’SilverFir for a loan from the Noble Treasury in the amount of 1,500,000 gilt, to be repaid over three generations.” He stared at Ailim. “This is the first time since the colonists landed that a FirstFamily has asked for a loan from this Council.”
    Ailim flinched. All the other FirstFamilies who sat on the dais had prospered more than SilverFir. They were powerful in Flair and in wealth. SilverFir had already failed in their eyes.
    Bucus droned on, listing SilverFir’s debts, enough to sober her abruptly. As the itemization went on and on, people’s faces clouded or went carefully blank. Ailim forced her hands to stay still, her teeth from worrying her lower lip. She fought a war against nerves. How could she bear to lose her Residence, the home she loved so much?
    She sat stiffly; she must bear it. Better the loss of the Residence and ancestral estate than the fragmentation of the GrandHouse Family itself. Family was everything. She could hear echoes of her Mothersire’s lectures about protecting the Family, keeping it safe. She could not fail her forebears, the relatives who supported her and worked as hard as she did, or herself.
    Danith D’Ash focused her attention on Ailim and she tensed. How would this commoner newly elevated to the highest level of the nobility feel about loaning a poorly managed GrandHouse an outrageous sum of gilt? Suspicious? Contemptuous?
    Compassionate. Danith D’Ash’s warm hazel eyes met Ailim’s. D’Ash, and her HeartMate, T’Ash, knew what it was to be needy.
    D’Ash’s mind became the