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appeals for new funding, the mayor’s sleek staff accepted their token with the semblance of deferent charm.
    â€˜Your Lordship,’ they murmured. ‘Enjoy a good evening and a sound rest.’
    Sulfin Evend stood up, a whipcord lean man with dark hair and pale eyes, and the well-set, alert bearing that bespoke a razor intelligence. Hanshire born, and the son of a mayor, he showed flawless courtesy, inwardly knowing he dared not trust Erdane’s cordial reception too far. Secret brotherhoods still gathered inside these gates. Practitioners of magecraft and unclean rites lurked in the crumbling tenements by the west wall. Tonight’s wealthy sycophants spurred his concern, as their flurried whispers and rushed, private dispatches widened the breach for covert enemies to exploit.
    The Alliance commander climbed the stair to the guest wing, decided on his response. He would stand his armed guard in the Divine Prince’s bedchamber, and be damned if the mayor’s pretentious staff took umbrage at his distrust.
    His intent was forestalled by the royal equerry, who had obstinately barred Lysaer’s quarters.
    â€˜You’ll admit me, at once,’ Sulfin Evend demanded. ‘I’ll have the man whipped, who says otherwise.’
    â€˜The Divine Prince himself.’ The equerry’s nervous distress emerged muffled, from behind the gilt-panelled entry. ‘His Blessed Grace is indisposed. By his order, he stays undisturbed.’
    That news raised a chilling grue of unease, fast followed by burning suspicion. Lysaer s’Ilessid had often looked peaked through the weeks since the campaign ended. Aboard ship across Instrell Bay, his Blessed Grace had scarcely emerged from his cabin. The retirement seemed natural. Each widow and grieving mother would receive a sealed writ of condolence from the hand of the Light. Over the subsequent, storm-ridden march, Sulfin Evend had not thought to question the hours spent addressing correspondence in the shelter of a covered wagon. Yet if Lysaer was ill, and masking the fact, the cascade of damages ran beyond the concept of frightening. A man hailed by the masses as a divine avatar dared not display any sign of a mortal weakness in public.
    â€˜You will admit me!’ His mailed fist braced against the locked door, Sulfin Evend surveyed the latch, an ornamental fitting of bronze the first hard blow would wrench from its setting. ‘Open up, or I’ll come, regardless.’
    No man in the field troop defied that tone.
    Wisely, the equerry chose not to risk scandal. ‘You, no one else.’ He shot the bar with dispatch. ‘The mayor’s staff was led to understand that his Exalted Grace was overjoyed with the welcoming brandy’
    Sulfin Evend slipped past the cracked panel, at once enfolded in blanketing warmth, expensively scented by citrus-polished wood and bees-wax. As thenervous servant secured the entry behind him, his tactical survey encompassed the loom of stuffed furnishings and the gleaming, shut doors of the armoires. The room’s gilt appointments lay wrapped in gloom, the resplendent state finery worn for the feast long since folded away in the clothes-chests. By custom, one candle burned on the night-stand: the Prince of the Light did not sleep in the presence of shadow or darkness. Amid that setting of diligent neatness, the lit figure sprawled upon crumpled sheets stood out like a shout of disharmony.
    Every nerve hackled, the Lord Commander advanced. The frightened page who minded the flame abandoned his stool and jumped clear. No stammered excuse could dismiss the harsh truth: Lysaer’s condition had passed beyond indisposed. Nor had drink rendered him prostrate. Lifelessly white as a stranded fish, a torso once muscled to glorify marble lay reduced to skeletal emaciation.
    Horrified, Sulfin Evend exclaimed, ‘How long has your master been padding his clothes?’
    â€˜My lord,’ the boy