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think."
    "You don't believe in the Shepherd or the Lady, Chalcus," Merota said sternly.
    "Aye, there you have me, dear one," said the sailor, but the banter was only in his tone and not his eyes. "Nor perhaps in the Sister who rules the Underworld. But if there was a Sister and a Hell for her to rule, I think we might find them in a place that looks much-"
    Chalcus nodded toward the column of steam, still rising and now seeming to sparkle at the core.
    "-as that one does."
    "Yes," said Ilna, her eyes on the horizon. "And I've never found such a lack of trouble in this world that I needed to borrow it from the heavens."

Chapter 2
    "This is the palace," Protas said, standing in the stern of the barge that was carrying Cashel with the delegation returning to Mona, the island's capital. He cleared his throat. "I suppose you've seen much better ones, though? Haven't you, Cashel?"
    Mona had a good harbor unless the wind came from the southwest, but it wasn't big enough by half to hold the battered royal fleet. That wasn't a surprise: Cashel didn't guess there was a handful of places in all the kingdom that could. There'd be ships dragged up on every bit of bare shore for miles around the city tonight, trying to make good damage from the meteor.
    At least the beaches of First Atara seemed to be sand, not the fist-sized basalt shingle that lay beyond the ancient seawall of Barca's Hamlet. That was hard on keels, and for all their size warships were built lighter than the fishing dories that were the only ships Cashel'd known while he was growing up.
    "I've seen bigger places, palaces and temples and even the main market-building in Valles," he said. "I don't know I've ever seen a nicer one. Still, I'm not one to talk. I spend most of my time outdoors when people let me."
    Cashel had thought about the question instead of just saying something. Sheep were better than people about waiting for you to think before you said something; people were likely to push you to answer right now. Cashel's mind didn't work that way, that quick, unless there was danger. Besides, it seemed to him that the folks who were quickest with words were likely to be the last folks you wanted beside you when danger came at you-out of the woods, up from the sea or maybe roaring down through the heavens like just now.
    Lord Martous stood nearby. The barge wasn't so big that you could be on it and not be close to everybody else who was, but he was kind of pretending that he wasn't anywhere in shouting distance of Cashel and the prince. Martous hadn't been best pleased when Protas asked Cashel to come ashore with him, but whatever he'd started to say dried up when Protas gave him a look.
    Chances were Martous had done pretty much as he pleased in the past, with Cervoran was off in his own world of studies and Protas a boy whose father didn't pay him a lot of attention. Things were different now, and Martous was smart enough to see that. Maybe Cashel standing behind the prince like a solid wall had helped the fellow understand.
    Cashel didn't like bullies. Cashel particularly didn't like folks bullying children, even if they weren't being especially mean about it.
    Sharina had said for Cashel to go along with Protas on the barge. He guessed it had something to do with the politics she and Garric and the others had been talking about to Martous, but Cashel couldn't be sure. She might've just been being nice to the boy.
    Sharina was a really nice person-and smart too, smarter than a lot of people thought so pretty a woman could be. He'd seen it happen with fellows, treating Sharina like she didn't have anything behind her blue eyes except fluff and then bam! learning she'd been two steps ahead of them the whole way.
    The palace sat on a platform built up from the edge of the harbor. Most of the frontage was a limestone seawall with statues-Cashel counted them out on his fingers: six statues-set up along it. The bronze was old enough to be green, but that didn't take