threaten the Magi and pay. There were plenty of rumors about how many people had been incinerated by the Eye; that only increased the fear. So far as Kiron was aware, no one had actually confirmed any deaths—but as Heklatis had said, would anyone dare?
They were afraid of each other. Though no laws were decreed making dissent and expression of dissent into an actual crime, enough people were accused of being traitors and, if not hauled up before a magistrate and jailed, certainly set upon by their fellow citizens, that no one dared speak out. It was bad enough to be accused of being “unpatriotic,” but if you weren’t careful, you could also be accused of being an agent of Tia, sent to foment discontent and discord. And that was a crime. There was a note of hysteria in much patriotic fervor now, as if the “patriot” was trying much too hard to keep from being added to someone’s list. The only sure way to be safe was to be among the Great Ones’ chosen friends or others of rank and privilege. Thus far, no one had dared to accuse any of the nobles.
Yet.
Lord Ya-tiren kept away from the court; this did not excite any suspicion, for he had until now been in the habit of devoting himself to the two pursuits of managing his estate and his scholarship. He had eyes and ears in the court, though, and that was how Kiron knew that if nerves were on edge in the city, they were grated raw in the court. If people were uneasy around their neighbors in the city, then they eyed each other with the brittle certainty that they were going to betray each other at the first opportunity in the court.
The ordinary citizens were sure that the nobles were safe from accusations. The nobles were just as certain that accusations within the court were just a matter of time. If the Heir could be rebuked and disgraced, no one was safe.
Toreth’s name was never spoken, and if Kaleth’s parents missed him, they were making no show of it. He did send one message that he was staying with friends elsewhere, though he did not specify where. He did make arrangements for messages to be sent back to him. No message ever came, nor did his parents send anyone to search for him.
“I am useless to them now,” Kaleth noted dully. “When we were the Heirs, it was different; they were the parents of the Princes, and basked in the reflected glory, I suppose. Now, I am nothing but a spare son, and a tainted one at that.”
Kiron ground his teeth in anger when he heard that. He could not imagine parents using and discarding their children so callously. It only made him the more determined to give Kaleth a kind of second family here.
But Marit-te-en was at the compound nearly every other day, and she was their second, and much closer source for what was going on in the halls of the Great Ones. Unlike Kaleth and Toreth, she and her sister were identical, had the habit of always dressing alike, and thus it was a trivial thing for Marit to slip away, leaving her sister to play the roles of both twins.
Frankly, as he came to know Marit, Kiron was coming to sense that there had been one flaw in Toreth’s personality at least. How could someone as intelligent as Toreth not have warmed up to his betrothed? Everyone agreed that Nofret-te-en was as personable as Marit, and Marit was brave, warm-hearted, and if not as clever and quick as Aket-ten, she had her own sort of wisdom. According to Gan and Oset-re, as well as both Marit and Kaleth, the girls were as alike in personality as they were in appearance. Granted, they were nearer to Ari’s age than they were to Kaleth’s, but still—
If I had never met Aket-ten, Kiron thought, and more than once, I would be coaxing Marit to bring her sister here. . . .
It was Marit who opened to them the state of things at court, for Marit and her sister were ladies-in-waiting to the (to Kiron) heretofore unknown half of the Great Ones, the twin wives.
“There are two councils now,” Marit said one evening, as they all huddled around braziers in Kaleth’s room, on one of the coldest and longest nights of the year. “Though we do not think the original council is aware of the—” she wrinkled her