The door to King Taryn’s private office creaked open on hinges that hadn’t been oiled for months. The air inside smelled old, as though nobody had been in there for a while, though Sorrel knew that couldn’t be the case. Arianlach had more or less taken over the administration of the kingdom three months before. But by the smell of damp, and the cold draught, Sorrel surmised no fire had been laid for some weeks.

It was a smaller room than he had imagined it would be. A tall, narrow window took up half of one wall, and a fireplace another, with the rest of the space taken up with an oak cabinet that stood from floor to ceiling and was carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl and blackpine in the delicate filigree of Cartha.

 Sorrel ran appreciative fingers along a looping floral vine that formed the carved border of each of the doors. ‘This is beautiful.’

‘Queen Antreyú brought that with her as part of her marriage chest when she married King Orianth – Arianlach’s great, great grandfather,’ said Leiryn, indulging Sorrel’s interest with a smile. ‘The current Treaties of the Five Kingdoms are kept there.’

Sorrel dropped his hand. The Treaties didn’t explicitly exclude the Tethiri, but neither did they precisely include them either. Serahaleros and Moreithin had both signed, but the Tethiri - despite their presence in both lands - had had no say in their signing.

Leiryn patted his shoulder in understanding. ‘Perhaps when they are renewed, you can be a signatory. You will, after all, hold a great deal of power and may even sign on behalf of Hviturek as well as your own people.’

‘That will be up to the King,’ he said quietly.

‘I hardly think my son will refuse you.’

She slanted a look at him, then smiled at Arianlach, who bent his head over the desk and fiddled with a blue-glass pen.

Sorrel dipped his chin and clasped his hands in front of him, watching silently as Leiryn and Arianlach brought out the old castle records, setting them on the table.

‘You’ll forgive me if I do not stay to help, but I must attend to the King,’ she said, and took Enhian with her, leaving Arianlach and Sorrel alone in the office.

‘I won’t be King long enough for you to sign the Treaty,’ Arianlach said with a touch of flippancy, though Sorrel caught the anxiety in his eyes.

‘We’ll see.’

‘Your optimism will disappear the minute you meet my uncle.’

‘Yet you were close to your cousins Kaithenal and Kerren,’ Sorrel pointed out. ‘And you have Henarian here. Surely they won’t support their father?’

‘Kaithenal’s not been seen for almost two years, Kerren’s dead, and Henarian’s here because I don’t trust him. I know you don’t like him, either. He’s more or less a hostage, though he doesn’t know it. At some point I will have to make that clear, but for now it suits me to delay his return to Hviturek.’

‘Then delay it until his father swears fealty to you,’ Sorrel said.

‘And if Rurien decides he can do without one more son? Do you know how many children he has? He might decide he can spare one, just to get my arse off the throne and into the earth! Then, if he still can't find Kaithenal, he will put Melysarian, or his next son Gaelen, on my throne!’

He straightened and folded his arms, blowing his cheeks out with frustration. The flicker of the lamp cast blueish shadows under his bright eyes and made his cheeks look sunken. ‘I’ll have to hang Henarian. I don’t want to, but I will have to, if my uncle refuses to accept me as his King.’

Sorrel swallowed. ‘If it comes to that, better see me married first, so I can bring my warriors to you.’

They both fell silent.

‘What is Sersa like?’ Sorrel asked, after a few moments. ‘Is she like her father?’

‘I haven’t seen her for a year. But she has the Hervik temper. Pretty sure you won’t like her.’

‘I…’ Sorrel stopped. No, he wouldn’t like her, not as a wife. He knew that, had known that for some time, even before Virishu had broken the news of his betrothal over his head that day. But could he work with her? For Arianlach’s sake?

She was still young. Rurien’s influence, if he could get her away from him, could be worked out of her.

He gripped the edge of the table and leaned toward Arianlach. ‘May I make a request? Of the...of the Crown-Prince?’

Arianlach snorted. 'Ask away. I probably have no power to grant whatever you’re about to ask for.’

‘Send for Sersa now. If I can be fostered with you for a year before I marry her, then I see no reason she cannot be fostered here too. With Melysarian. After all, if she’s taking a Tethiri husband, where better to learn about his ways than here, where there is a sizeable population of Tethiri tribesmen? It could be to her advantage to have that knowledge...and to her father’s...’

Arianlach shook his head and laughed. ‘You sly bastard. As if Rurien will agree to that.’

‘That’s why I asked it of the Crown Prince,’ said Sorrel. ‘If the Crown-Prince gives him an order, he can hardly refuse.’

‘He won’t refuse me. He’ll ignore me.’

‘Send the request via the Queen, then. Or with the King’s seal…’

Arianlach’s look of pure incredulity was almost comical. Sorrel stood his ground, however, and stared Arianlach down.

‘Think about it,’ he urged.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Arianlach promised, solemnly. ‘If you’re right…well, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, I think. Alright, I’ll send for your future viper wife then. Don't blame when she kicks your arse around the castle from dawn to dusk!'

Sorrel drew a deep breath through his nostrils, relieved. ‘I can handle her. I have several sisters, remember? If…well, we may well be able to let Henarian live, this way. You won't have to hang him.'

‘What do you care what happens to that brat?’

‘I don’t want to watch you hang him, when I know it’ll hurt you to do so.’

Arianlach’s smile returned. ‘Very well.’

It was a start, Sorrel thought, to sorting out some of the problems Arianlach faced. Having two of Rurien’s remaining eldest children here at Silverheim would make him cautious about engaging Arianlach in a war, and might convince him that Arianlach intended to honour the ties of kinship and work with him for the good of the country.

And a letter to his father that he had married ahead of schedule would secure the twenty-thousand warriors. He didn't tell Arianlach that part of his plan, however. 

Arianlach sat down and dragged his chair up to the table, gesturing for Sorrel to do the same. ‘Shall I order up tea? Or wine?’

‘Tea.’ Sorrel inspected the great ledgers, and found they covered a range of dates that spanned almost five hundred years.

Morien was imprisoned five hundred years ago. He built the Havoc Stones. How many such waystones are hidden in plain sight among much older grave stones?

‘We’ll start here,’ he said, selecting one of the oldest tomes. ‘I imagine most of the waystones were built at the same time.’

‘Probably,’ said Arianlach, without much real interest. ‘The one in the baths is far older.’

Ah yes. He’d forgotten. That one had to be a thousand years old, maybe more. The Havoc Stones were not the first, after all. Morien had only devised a way of Travelling between worlds, where the older stones had only been meant for Travelling in this one. ‘And these are the oldest records?’

‘There may be older ones but I don’t know where they are. My father would, but…I can’t ask him, not now. We could look…?’ Arianlach said hopefully.

‘Start with that box under there,’ Sorrel said. He caught Arianlach’s eye. ‘If the records are Lyr Blaed records, would they even be here now?’

‘They may not. The Lyr Deru built Silverheim.’

Arianlach hugged himself, his shoulders hunched. The room’s shadows loomed over him; he looked like a flame fluttering in the gloom. Sorrel reached a hand for him before snatching it away again, suddenly aware of what he was doing.

‘If they’d any sense, they’d have kept the records, if there were any.’

‘Do the Tethiri have records?’

‘Yes. The Bidscánid and the Hanscánid are our records,’ Sorrel said. ‘And the bard-songs have knowledge and history in them also. We have no need of a library that can be burned on a stray ember with the wind’s changing – we keep everything in our heads.’

Arianlach stared at him as if he’d take the top of Sorrel’s head off and ferret out everything in there, then he dropped his eyes with a small smile, and bent to the task of studying the records.