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later on.”
    “Aye. And you’d best get some rest. You look ready to drop.”
    “I’m fine.”
    The practised lie came easily to him now. It was much simpler than trying to explain that he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop his mind from running around in circles, or prevent the confused images that flashed in front of his eyes, catching him unawares.
    Something had happened to him. Something to do with R’shiel and her damned Harshini healing. But whenever he thought of R’shiel, a myriad conflicting and seemingly impossible memories surfaced. Some of them were real memories, he was certain of that. Others were like a nightmare. They were the ones where he imagined R’shiel in his arms. The ones where he loved her—not like the sister he had grown up believing her to be—but as her lover.
    The absolute certainty that he would never feel that way towards his sister was the only thing that kept him sane.

CHAPTER 9
    “The main wharf looks new.”
    Teriahna chuckled softly at Brak’s comment. They were walking along the waterfront of Talabar amidst the morning bustle of the busy port, for no better reason than the privacy such a public place offered. The sun beat down on them and the wharves were crowded with frazzled-looking merchants and barechested, sweat-sheened sailors shouting boisterously at each other as they unloaded their cargoes.
    “Ah, now there’s a story behind that,” she told him as they sidestepped a gilded litter carried by four muscular slaves. “The Princess Adrina tried her hand at sailing Hablet’s flagship, the Wave Warrior , so the story goes, and ended up ramming the dock. If you believe the rumours that’s why Hablet packed her off to Karien.”
    “And if you don’t believe the rumours?”
    “Then he married her to Cratyn because Adrina, more than any of his children, is cast in the same mould as her father. If he was up to something nasty and needed an ally in Karien, Adrina would be the one for the job.”
    Brak did not offer any further comment on Adrina. He had not told Teriahna the news he carried from Medalon. As far as anyone in Fardohnya knew, Adrina was still in the north. That Cratyn was dead, Adrina now married to Lord Wolfblade and Hablet’s eldest baseborn son was a casualty of the Karien–Medalonian war, was news he would prefer not to break until Adrina was safely across the border into Hythria, where Damin could protect her from her father’s wrath.
    “So, what do you know to be fact about Hablet’s treaty with Karien?”
    “Not much more than anyone else, I’m afraid,” she admitted. “He gave them the Isle of Slarn, we know that for certain, and there’s been no shortage of timber for shipbuilding since the princess left. According to the treaty, he’s supposed to attack Medalon from the south come the northern spring, and he’s certainly mustering his army for an invasion.”
    “But?” Brak asked, sensing there was more she had not told him.
    “But he’s got his officers studying Hythria, not Medalon.”
    “You think he seriously intends to invade Hythria?”
    “He’s never likely to have a better chance. He can’t go over the Sunrise Mountains—Tejay Lionsclaw makes certain of that. The Hythrun defend their ports too well to risk a naval invasion, and until the Kariens declared war on their neighbour, Medalon had the Defenders to deter him from taking that route. But with the Defenders tied up on theirnorthern border, and the Warlord of Krakandar up there with them, Hythria is wide open.”
    Brak nodded. Adrina had said almost the same thing.
    “Why is Hablet so determined to invade Hythria?” Brak asked. “It can’t just be greed. He’s richer than any man alive.”
    Teriahna seemed amused by the question. “Don’t you know? It isn’t wealth that drives Hablet, it’s fear.”
    “Of what?”
    “He doesn’t have a legitimate heir.”
    “That’s not a reason to invade Hythria.”
    “It is if you’re afraid that your next heir is