Feir couldn’t believe it. The boy killed his father for the idea of Lantano Garuwashi.

“I am Regent now, and by my father’s blood that stains my hands, I have the right to test the man who would be our king,” Hideo Mitsurugi said. “Please, doen-Lantano, show us Ceur’caelestos.”

There was the sound of something tearing and everyone stopped and looked to the back of the tent, where a knife was cutting a vertical slash all the way to the ground. Instantly, every maja and magus embraced their Talent and a dozen hands went to the hilts of swords. An assassin would have a hard time with this crowd.

A hand poked in and waved. “Pardon me,” a man’s deep voice said outside the tent. “If I step inside, am I going to be skewered?” Not waiting for an answer, he stepped inside.

He had pure white hair with black tips, deeply tanned olive skin, and a muscular bare chest beneath a rich cloak. He wore loose white pants and a thick gold crown sat snug against his brow.

“Solon?” Feir asked, astonished.

Solon smiled. “Only to you, my dear friend. As for the rest of you, pardon my unconventional entrance, but you have twenty thousand surly sa’ceurai blocking the front of the tent. I am Solonariwan Tofusin, King of Seth. I would say emperor, but as of ten years ago we have no more colonies, so ‘Emperor’ is a tad pretentious. Your Majesty, King Gyre, I bring a thousand men to your efforts. I did also bring five ships, but someone flooded the river this morning and now I have only two and I’m lucky not to have lost any men. Sisters, should we emerge from this conflict alive, I will be asking the Chantry for reimbursement. Feir, it seems you travel in exalted company these days. Ah, this must be Sister Ariel Wyant, a legend in your own time, and Vi Sovari, both buxom and brilliant—I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Eat shit,” Vi said.

Gasps arose around the table, and Sister Ariel put her hands on her temples.

“Apparently all I’ve heard is true,” Solon said.

He wasn’t acting like himself. Solon never prattled, but now he was speaking so quickly that even if anyone had known what to say they couldn’t have fit a word in.

“I have to tell you, on my way here, I saw a very dour Lae’knaught gentlemen speaking some rather choice words at being denied entry by the selfsame sa’ceurai who barred yours truly from said engagement. But here I stand, at considerable cost to my kingdom, and most especially my marriage—it took me weeks of moping about Whitecliff to secure my wife’s permission to come. Oh, you married men can pretend to be the masters of your castles and keeps and so forth, but the mistress of the bedchamber is the mistress of the master, eh? Regardless, here I stand, and I must say, the crowning jewel of my visit is this: Lantano Garuwashi, it is a great honor to meet you.” Solon strode over to the sa’ceurai and extended his hand.

“I don’t clasp hands with fish,” Lantano Garuwashi said.

Hideo Mitsurugi snorted, but no one else said a word.

Suddenly, Solon’s rushed and—to Feir’s eyes—panicky demeanor shifted. Solon had tripped over his tongue to get to Lantano Garuwashi, but now that he had the man’s attention, he was utterly patient. “It seems to me,” Solon said, “that a man born to an iron blade should not scorn the friendship of kings.”

Dead silence settled on the room. No one spoke like that to Lantano Garuwashi.

Solon continued, “You have no peer when it comes to the spilling of blood, Lantano Garuwashi. If you died today, your only legacy would be blood. Wouldn’t you rather your legacy was that of a man who spilled blood to quench the fires of war? Can butcher’s hands become carpenter’s hands? As a brother king, I ask you once more, and once only, will you take the hand of friendship?” Solon stood with hand extended.

It was an odd thing to ask a doomed man. Feir expected Garuwashi to spit in Solon’s face. But Garuwashi stood. “Let there be peace between us,” he said, and took Solon’s hand.

Standing right next to them, his own bulk blocking most of the table from seeing what transpired, Feir saw sudden confusion in Lantano Garuwashi’s eyes. He withdrew his hand from Solon’s clasp with one finger still pressed against his palm, concealing something. Then he rested that hand on Ceur’caelestos’s pommel. With a tiny sound, something clicked home, and Feir understood. Gods! “The greatest red gives dragon’s heart and head.” Feir had thought it meant the greatest red ruby, and it did, but it also meant the greatest red mage: Solon.

Garuwashi whipped the sword out of its scabbard and slammed it on the table.

A perfect ruby redder than ruby-red burned in the pommel, and it swam with deep magic, though Feir hadn’t imbued it with any weaves. The mistarille blade had patterns like a folded steel blade, but its patterns glittered like diamonds, sparkling and then transparent, letting a man see all the way through the blade into the heart of its magic. As they watched, every diamond-like ripple faded to a purer translucence like a slow shockwave as the twin dragons breathed fire. The fire blossomed in a thick bar from hilt all the way to the point of the sword. The heat of it warmed Feir’s face.

Feir had created something beyond himself. He was a great smith, but he wasn’t this good. Awed, Feir turned to Solon. The new King Tofusin grinned at him.

“Call me fraud or call me king,” Lantano Garuwashi said, and if there was a trembling of wonder in his voice, no one noticed it through their own.

Hideo Mitsurugi’s jaw was slack. “Lantano Garuwashi, I declare you—”

“My lord!” the court mage interrupted.

Mitsurugi acquiesced. “My ancestors have looked forward to this day for centuries. We’ve wanted it and feared it. Perhaps the regents most of all. Frauds have been attempted, so the Regent’s sword carries a test. I beg your pardon, doen-Lantano, but it is my duty.” He drew his ruby-encrusted blade and gave the pommel a sharp twist. It clicked and he pulled half of the hilt off. Inside was a thin scroll woven with preservation magics. Mitsurugi read it, his lips moving as he puzzled out the old language.

“Lantano Garuwashi, banish the fires from the blade.”

Garuwashi took the blade and the fires died. How did he know how to do that?

“I need a candle,” Mitsurugi said, and someone slid one down the table to him. He picked it up and brought it toward the blade.

Terror seized Feir’s breath. Mitsurugi brought the candle to the very spot Feir had hidden his vanity, his own smithmark. The crossed war hammers practically leapt out of the metal.

Mitsurugi sighed.

Feir’s heart stopped.

Mitsurugi said, “Down to Oren Razin’s crossed war hammers, it’s real. This blade is Ceur’caelestos. Lantano Garuwashi, you are the lost King of Ceura. The sa’ceurai stand at your word.”

Real. Not a forgery. The very things that made it different from Curoch were what convinced the Regent that Feir’s blade was real. Feir’s limbs felt weak. He had a single moment to think, how embarrassing, I can’t possibly pass—

Then he passed out.

89

After Feir collapsed—and what was that about? Ariel wondered—the odious Overlord of the Lae’knaught, Julus Rotans, finally won his way through the waiting sa’ceurai and made it into the tent. Hideo Mitsurugi wanted to go immediately and announce that Ceura had found its king, but Logan had asked him to wait. Ariel still didn’t know why.