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does?”
    “Certainly.”
    “But I never see him.”
    Iya smoothed her hands down the front of her robe. “He’s been busy with some spell he’s working on. That takes up much of his time.”
    Ki sighed. That hadn’t stopped Arkoniel from sending for Tobin, just not for him.
    Iya must have seen the doubt in his eyes, or maybe she touched his mind to read it, for she smiled. “Don’t worry about this, my dear. Your illness frightened him more than he likes to admit. Perhaps he has an odd wayof showing it, but he cares for you a great deal. I’ll speak to him.”
    Ki rose and gave her a grateful bow. He was still too much in awe of her to hug her. “Thank you, Mistress. I’d be awfully sad if he didn’t like me anymore.”
    Iya surprised him with a soft touch on his cheek. “You mustn’t ever think that, child.”

Chapter 4
    I t amused Niryn greatly to watch Orun fume and fret over Prince Tobin’s absence. He’d suspected from the start that the Lord Chancellor had engineered the guardianship for himself, hoping to cement his connection to the royal family through Tobin. If the child had been a girl, no doubt he’d even have gone so far as to ask for a betrothal. He was powerful, it was true, and his oily loyalty to the king’s mother had gained him both wealth and status; Erius might have considered such a match.
    Instead, here was this skinny, skittish little boy, heir to the richest estates in the land, and Orun held the purse strings. Niryn’s own hold on the king was secure enough, but it irked him to see such a plum fall into the lap of the most odious man in Ero. So he bided his time and kept spies in the house to see if Orun would trip himself up. Orun’s penchant for young boys was no secret, though he’d wisely limited himself to servants and whores who could be counted on not to tattle. But if he should forget himself with Tobin? Well, that would certainly be a bit of luck. The wizard had even considered helping the matter along.
    It was all moot anyway, though. Anytime the king chose—and here Niryn did have some influence—Erius could with impunity seize Tobin’s estates, his lands, and treasuries. Tobin was young and virtually friendless among the nobles; with his parents dead, such a child was not worth anyone’s loyalty.
    If Ariani’s daughter had lived, rather than this sprat, it would have been a different matter. As the plagues anddroughts worsened and the peasants turned to Illior, it had not been terribly difficult to make the king see that any female of the blood posed a threat to his line. If the Illiorans had their way, any one of these pretenders could claim to be a “daughter of Thelátimos” and raise an army against him. The solution was the usual time-honored one.
    Niryn had made a near-fatal error, however, when he pointed out obliquely that the king’s sister, Ariani, posed the greatest threat of all. Erius had very nearly ordered Niryn’s execution; that had been the first time Niryn used magic against the king.
    The incident passed and Niryn was glad when it became apparent that the king’s forbearance did not extend to his sister’s children. They’d both taken it as an auspicious sign when Ariani’s daughter was stillborn. Later, the princess’ descent into madness had done Niryn’s work for him. Not even the most fanatical Illiorans would want another mad queen on the throne. No one would back Ariani, or her demon-cursed son.
    Yet that still left others. A girl, any girl, who could claim even tangentially to be a “daughter of Thelátimos” might find that the Prophecy of Afra had not been forgotten, no matter how many priests and wizards the king burned. It was a fact Niryn counted on.
    N o one had noticed when Niryn began paying monthly visits to Hear. He dressed as a wealthy merchant and added a spell to fuddle the minds of any who might recognize him. In this way he’d come and gone as he pleased all these years. Who would dare spy on the leader of