The small man sighed heavily. “And they have completed yet another fortification along the river. They now have nearly twenty such towers.” He shook his head. “My men are worried.They fear another war with Eromore. And I cannot tell them it won’t happen. The Eromorn are power-hungry fiends. They will not attack until they are ready, but I fear they shall be ready soon. And when they are, they may need only the slightest provocation, if that, to invade us once again.”
I couldn’t help myself. “They didn’t invade us last time,” I said stoically. “We annexed one of their provinces through a political marriage.”
Silence hung over the room. No one else here would ever speak to General Hiset in such a tone.
“Yes,” the man said, a little perturbed. “And thentheyinvaded our newly acquired territory.”
“The captain’s point is valid.” This from the queen, her aged voice still strong, a resonant alto. “We provoked them, and they responded.” She looked at me intently then. “But we will not be doing that again any time soon. We’ll give them no reason to attack us.”
The question we were all considering, though, was: did they need a reason?
The queen sighed heavily. “It’s Ossara I’m worried about. The way my son has abandoned his wife is disgraceful.”
Prince Victor was in the room, at the table, but the queen wouldn’t even look at him.
I grimaced. I was fairly certain the queen didn’t know how I’d facilitated her son’s continued tryst with his mistress.
I was beginning to regret that choice. Word was, the princess’s family back in Ossara were not happy about how the prince had treated her. There were fears he would discard his family in favor of this mistress and have a new heir. I didn’t think Victor was the type of man to do that, but then… he’d seemed different these past few months since he’d met Veora, more distant from everyone except his mistress. I didn’t know the man well, but as the captain of a mercenary company thatwas now fully in the employ of the crown, I had spoken with him on several occasions. I’d thought the man to be courteous and gallant, but perhaps I’d never truly known him.
When I looked over at Victor, his face was shadowed with defiance. He spoke stiffly.
“Princess Kira wants for nothing. She is well tended and loves our children, but she’d spurned our bed for far too long. I simply wished for some company now and then.”
“Perhaps if you tended to her as you did to your mistress, your wife would join you more often, princeling.” The queen’s tone was harsh.
That silenced Victor, who remained stoic after that.
I tried not to shake my head. I hoped I’d done the right thing helping him to continue seeing his mistress. Not that I could have denied the prince his request.
The queen turned to General Hiset. “What is our preparedness, General? If Eromore does attack, how would we fare?”
I knew the answer to this, and wondered what the general would say. “Our forces were depleted in the last war. We’d be able to defend any fortifications. They wouldn’t take the capital…” He hesitated.
The queen finished. “But they’d take the rest of our nation, yes?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“That is unacceptable.” A hardness set on the queen’s already stern features. The silver hair and the wizened lines on her face seemed chiseled from stone. Her steel-blue eyes reflected a soul which had seen far too much hardship already.
“What of the Phorasti?” she asked. “How many more could we call to arms?”
There was only one Phorasti of any real power in the city… Tisi’s adopted brother, Dazar. I’d gotten to know him when I’dbeen apprenticed to her father. He was a good man, though I hadn’t seen him in years. But I’d heard how he’d been instrumental in lifting the siege on Vestrea and ending the war. If one man could do that, then perhaps an army of them could…
“From our latest information, there are nine Phorasti in the city, most are Pearlians who sought training at the White Tower. Unfortunately, it seems non-Dathi do not fare as well in learning those mystic arts. A few of our Phorasti could be useful as healers, but most have little ability. The only true Phorasti in the city is the Dathi man who helped us end the last war. It is my hope he would come to our aid, if needed.”
“Only one?” The queen did not seem pleased. “What about the other Dathi at the White tower?”
“Your Majesty, the Phorastic Council has said they will not participate in any conflict. They said that Phora is the energy of life, and to use it to kill is abhorrent.”
The queen’s jaw twitched. “I don’t particularly like war either,” she muttered. “Do they not realize they only have the liberty of their high ideals because we freed them?” she hissed.
Pearlia had fought with the Free Dathi during the Dath-Riven war, against the Purists, a movement of full-blooded Dathi who’d sought to eliminate any half-Dathi and mixed-bloods. It had been a brutal and grueling conflict ranging over many lands — since the Dathi, once a nomadic people — had settled amongst many nations.
I knew of the war only through tales from my father. It had ended almost twenty years ago, when I’d been just a boy.
After the war, some of the Free Dathi had built The White Tower in Pearlian lands: a place to train those with the gift to see and manipulate the energies they called Phora. The crown had given them those lands, helped them get set up, and supported them. Now they had turned their backs on us?
This was news to me.
