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new Warden of Ynefel, resurrected from anathema and death itself… I had never planned to love him like a brother.
    Worst of all—there was a claimant for the throne of Elwynor that he both believed and feared was the fulfillment of the prophecy—he knew, and Emuin and Idrys knew, and Ninévrisë herself knew, but he was far from sure Tristen knew.
    And he could think of few things that would make Tristen more miserable.
    It was almost time. He walked the long corridor from his private office toward the state halls, a vast, well-lighted corridor of fine tall windows with the royal Dragon blazing gold on red, Marhanen heraldry all but dimmed now as sunset shone like fire in the two clear panes to either side.
    He saw commotion at the doors ahead. Arrivals had begun. Efanor, he discovered, had come in early, but not too early, and Cefwyn met Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles his brother with a warm embrace, a genuine embrace—though the ornate and overlarge Quinalt medallion Efanor affected turned between them as they met and stabbed painfully through the velvet.
    Efanor flattened it to him and renewed the embrace, laughing.
    “Did the books come, the two from the south?” Efanor asked.
    “Have they come? I’ve not seen them, gods, when shall I have the leisure for books again? Annas!” he hailed his chamberlain, who passed down the hall at a fair clip, shepherding servants and pages who should not be in the receiving hall, gods alone knew why the young fools had chosen that traverse precisely as guests arrived.
    “Annas, where are these books my brother sent?”
    “In the library, my lord king.” This on the retreat, pages scattering.
    “In the library . Why the library, for the gods’ sake?” He was promised a first text of the natural philosopher Manystys Aldun, observations of the ocean he had never seen. Efanor had recovered his summer baggage out of now-disgraced Llymaryn, and with it, his forgotten birthday gift, arriving in a pack train which must finally have reached the capital. Cefwyn had waited for it for months… was eager to read the text… when he might find the time.
    Being king, he had not his books in his room— but in some damned great room full of books where he could find nothing.
    But then Emuin arrived, far from the dire condition Idrys’ report had led him to believe… looking a little like an owl roused by daylight, true, and a little windblown, but properly scrubbed and tidy. His beard, whiter this fall than its previous streaked gray, was well combed. He wore gray, always gray, and bore the Teranthine sigil conspicuous on his chest. It was a war of medallions tonight.

    Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles
    “Well, well, and welcome,” Cefwyn said, feeling thin arms beneath the robes as they embraced. “They led me to think you had dismissed your servants, master grayrobe.”
    “I have! Pottering about, moving my stacks, oversetting my inkpot… if I want ink spilled on my charts, I can do it myself.”
    “I can find you other servants.”
    “And spying. Spying!” This with a knit-browed glance at Idrys, who stood to the side, loquacious as statuary.
    “Idrys means you nothing but well, old master,” Cefwyn said.
    “And gives you his report of my reports. If you wish the state of the stars, ask me .”
    “I shall,” Cefwyn said, suppressing a smile. Your Majesty was almost unheard out of Emuin’s mouth. In the old man’s mind, he suspected, he was still the tow-headed royal urchin, leaning inconsiderate inky elbows on precious books.
    But for Efanor, also Emuin’s pupil in former days, there had been nothing from master Emuin but a polite nod of his head, a solemn, formal, and entirely correct: “Your Highness.” Did that sting, oh, far more than any omission of royal honors? Cefwyn did not guess.
    He worried about it.
    But meanwhile Cevulirn of Ivanor had arrived hard on Emuin’s heels and slipped in silently, leaving his guard outside, men