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and wouldn’t let any of us try it, not even Margarida and was she mad ’cause she says she gets revulsions of the stomach just as bad as you, and then Tessa got bossy and said you’d need something to eat when you did wake up, so here you are.” She folded her hands in her lap. “If you aren’t hungry, can I have your eggs?”
    Coryn thought that if he had to put up with any more of her chatter, he’d pack her off to Belisar himself, but she left him cheerfully enough. He devoured the entire breakfast. It all tasted wonderful, even the ripened chervine cheese.
    The food steadied his stomach. He pulled on his boots and the cleanest shirt and pants he could find, and went in search of his father.

    Coryn made his way to the eastern tower, where Lord Leynier met with Padraic to go over the estate accounts and conduct other business early in the day. The room resembled a solarium with its thick glass windows along the curved outer wall, bright in all but the stormiest winter mornings. As a young boy, Coryn loved to sit on the pinewood floor and play quietly while his father worked. He’d even sneaked in uninvited once or twice alone, although that was strictly forbidden, until one day Petro got caught doing the same thing and spent a week scrubbing out the latrines.
    Petro had a talent for getting into trouble, not so much for what he did but how he’d always argue why it was right and necessary when he got caught. Sometimes he’d even convince his father, or at least so entertain him as to receive a lesser punishment, which only encouraged him. If it had been Coryn caught in the eastern tower room, he’d have had a month at the latrines, not just a week.
    Coryn paused in the small connecting chamber and lifted his hand to knock on the inner door. Voices reached him, his father speaking the name of a Tower. Neskaya.
    “. . . for the sake of the boy’s health and sanity,” rumbled a bass voice. Dom Rumail. “. . . there should be . . . no delay . . .”
    Coryn held his breath in the silence that followed. Above the pounding of his heart, he heard his father’s quiet words, sensed the fear and love behind them.
    “You are sure Coryn is at risk? That sending him to a Tower is his only hope?”
    “Nothing is certain but death and next winter’s snows,” the laranzu replied, his voice rising in forcefulness. “But this much I can swear to you, vai dom . In all my years, I have never seen a child suffer threshold sickness this severe . . .” His voice lowered, the words muffled. “. . . without skilled care. Perhaps, if he had been taught from early years by a household leronis . . .”
    Rumail’s words trailed off and the silence lengthened. Coryn’s hand ached from the tension of clenching his fist. His mind jumped and darted from one thought to another—his promise to Kristlin, the vague uneasiness from last night which even now stirred once more, and now this news, that he himself must be sent away—that he had laran —
    Unable to contain himself any longer, Coryn rapped on the door, startling at the loudness of the sound. At his father’s word, he lifted the latch and went in. The scene was much as he expected, his father sitting behind the big burl-wood desk, Dom Rumail in a cushioned chair.
    “Ah! There you are!” His father gestured for Coryn to come in, just as if he’d been expected.
    Coryn lowered himself on the bare stool, wiping damp palms on the thighs of his pants. He kept his eyes fixed on his father’s. He did not want to look at Dom Rumail.
    “It’s about Kristlin,” he began. His words spilled out as he stumbled through her story.
    “She is indeed the one who tested strongest for the laran qualities King Damian is looking for in a match,” Beltran said gravely. His brows, black shot through with gray, drew together briefly. “So it is for her that the marriage offer is proposed.”
    “But she’s only—” —eight! Coryn bit off his words, sensing his father’s distress. He