When Arturyn arrived at Erin’s room early the next morning, she had already eaten and gotten dressed and was currently trying to sit still on a chair while a young woman dressed in a servant’s uniform wove thin, colored ribbons back and forth through the two braids she had plaited on the sides of Erin’s head.

“Nearly ready?” Arturyn asked, walking over to stand next to Erin’s chair.

He looked far more regal than she had seen him so far, dressed in blue and silver with a thin silver band encircling his head. The green scars had disappeared from his face, probably hidden by some kind of magic.

“Don’t ask me,” she replied, a little grumpily. She had never enjoyed having other people fix her hair. “I don’t even know what she’s doing back there.”

He smiled slightly at the look on her face. “It’s a traditional style for Silmarith girls,” he explained. “But ask Kirchel to do your hair for the ball tonight. She has quite a flair for elegant hairstyles, and she’ll be able to use enough magic that it should be quite quick and painless.”

“Where is Kirchel, anyway?” Erin asked. “I haven’t seen her at all this morning. Isn’t she coming with us?”

She had a pretty good idea why Kirchel hadn’t shown up yet, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to reveal that she knew about what had happened the night before.

“I’m not sure she is, actually. She….” Arturyn hesitated. “Well, let’s just say she wasn’t feeling very festive when I last talked to her.”

Erin was about to ask him what was wrong with her, just to see what his reply would be, when the woman behind her patted her on the shoulder and said something in Silmarith.

“She says you’re all done,” Arturyn interpreted.

He said something to the woman, and she smiled and curtseyed. Then she gathered up the hair supplies she'd brought and left the room.

Arturyn turned back to Erin. “Shall we go, then?”

She followed him out of the room, walking carefully so as not to trip on her long skirt. The dress the servant woman had found in the closet for her to wear was white with a wide band of pale violet embroidery around the bottom of the skirt. It also had a kind of narrow cape made of a silky violet material trailing down the back.

Capes were apparently in fashion here because Arturyn had one as well, although his was fuller and gathered on the top. It was also elaborately embroidered in silver, including a large depiction of the imperial crest in the center.

“What's that snake thing? The one with wings.” Erin asked him, quickening her pace a little so she could walk beside him. “It’s all over the place here.”

“That’s because it’s the emblem of the imperial government,” Arturyn said. “But the creature itself is an anaurian.”

They reached the end of the hallway and turned into a larger corridor, heading out of the residential wing of the palace and towards the entrance hall.

“‘Anaurian’?” Erin repeated, puzzled. “Isn’t that the same as my clan name?”

“Yes, it is. Your clan is named after the animal. But the anaurian on the crest represents Prince Kalejan of Tinur, who gave up his claim to the throne in order to devote his life to establishing peace between the warring Silmarith countries. He later became the first emperor. That’s why the picture of the anaurian doesn’t have legs. Normally they have four. Kalejan was badly wounded during an attack by the Selanorith army when he was a boy and lost both his legs at the knee. Healing magic wasn’t as advanced then as it is now.... And the anaurian was chosen as the animal to represent the empire because it’s a very powerful magic creature but is very gentle and peaceful. It’s been a symbol of royalty in Silmarith culture since long before the empire was founded.”

“Royalty?” Erin asked, her eyes widening. “Then why is my clan named after it? We’re not royalty, are we?”

Arturyn smiled at the incredulous look on her face. “Not to begin with, no.”

Erin frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, your clan got its name and most of its notoriety from a very peculiar tendency that its members have to marry into royal families. There isn’t a royal line in Silmar that doesn’t have at least one Anaurian somewhere on the family tree. Only a couple of the current monarchs have any Anaurian blood themselves—the clan doesn’t seem to favor the direct ruling line. But nearly all the monarchs have a branch or two of their extended family that are descended from Anaurians. No one has ever figured out why it happens. It’s just some bizarre twist of fate that most Anaurians seem destined to fall in love with someone of royal blood.”

“Including Kirchel?”

Arturyn stopped dead. A young man walking behind them and carrying what looked like a pile of folded sheets nearly ran into him and swerved to the side with a half bow and a muttered apology, his face turning red. Arturyn didn’t seem to notice him. He turned slowly to look at Erin, his expression intense.

She forced herself to look calmly back at him, although her heart was pounding. She was sure he was going to demand that she tell him how she knew and start berating her for spying on him and Kirchel.

But a moment later, Arturyn dropped his gaze to stare unseeingly at the floor, his expression pained.

“Including Kirchel,” he said quietly. He was silent for a moment and then heaved a sigh. “But it was her misfortune to pick the only person in Silmar who has to marry someone of royal blood…which, I am very sorry to say, doesn’t include her….”

“Oh no, not one of those...” Erin said before she could stop herself.

Arturyn looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Sorry. It’s just that it’s a situation that comes up in books a lot,” she explained hastily. “Books in my world, anyway.”

“Well, here it happens in real life,” Arturyn said bitterly. He scowled briefly down at the floor. Then he shook his head and sighed again. “But us being late to the Nylad isn’t going to help anything. Come on, we need to be downstairs in a few minutes."

He led her along another hallway, down a flight of stairs, and through a doorway that opened onto the end of the entrance hall.

A large crowd lined both sides of the hall and filled the balcony, sitting on long rows of tiered seats that had been brought in sometime since yesterday. More people were filtering in through the doors around the hall, and there was a loud hum of excited talking.

Arturyn put a hand on Erin’s shoulder and guided her past a line of guards to a raised platform underneath the large imperial banner. A number of official-looking people were seated on the platform in chairs arranged in a semicircle. Arturyn steered Erin toward a kind-faced woman with dark brown skin sitting next to an empty seat on one side. She looked up and smiled as they approached her.

“This is Tabitha,” Arturyn told Erin when they reached the woman’s side. “She’s one of my advisors, and she speaks English. I’ve asked her to keep an eye on you and explain what’s going on during the ceremony.”

Hearing the familiar name, Erin looked more closely at the woman and was surprised to see that her ears were round. She must be at least part human, then.

“Don’t worry, Arturyn,” Tabitha said. Erin was even more surprised to hear her speak with what sounded like an Australian accent. “I’ll take good care of her.”

When Erin had sat down next to Tabitha, Arturyn left them to consult with the anxious-looking Bredin and a couple of men wearing guards’ uniforms, who were standing to one side of the platform.

Glancing around, Erin saw that many of the people on the platform and in the surrounding crowd were watching her curiously. She realized that a strange teenage girl walking in with the emperor would obviously raise a lot of interest. She bit her lip nervously, wishing Kirchel were there with her.

“It’s Erin, isn’t it?” Tabitha asked, smiling kindly at her.

Erin nodded.

“Arturyn said you came to Isil-Gal for the first time just a couple of days ago. I’m sure all of this must be very new and strange to you.” Tabitha’s voice was gentle and understanding.

“Yes...it is.”

Erin didn't think that the word ‘strange’ even came close to describing her experiences over the last two days. But she didn’t know if Arturyn had told Tabitha about the Mataiths, and she didn’t really want to talk about them.

“Did you come from the other world, too? You look human, and you sound like you’re from Australia.”

Tabitha laughed. “Very good. I don’t come across people who recognize my accent very often, living here. But yes, I grew up in Australia, near Sydney. I’m an emerged mage, like you. I came here for the first time when I was eighteen.”

An excited rustle ran suddenly through the crowd, followed by a hush. Erin looked up. Two columns of uniformed soldiers were filing out from doors on either side of where they sat and moving along the sides of the hall to stand at regular intervals underneath the edge of the balcony, between the crowd and the center of the hall.

Arturyn was now standing in front of the platform, facing the rest of the room. Four other people were standing slightly behind him, two on each side.

On his left were two men. One was dressed in an elaborately decorated version of the guards’ uniform, with gold instead of silver and with a dark red cape added to the back. The other was wearing clothing similar to Arturyn’s but a bit less ornate.

On Arturyn’s right side was a woman with light brown hair piled on top of her head and decorated with small, sparkling gemstones. She was wearing a flowing dress of pale gold that was long enough to trail on the floor behind her. Next to her was a man wearing black robes embroidered with a kind of metallic black thread that shimmered when it caught the light but was otherwise invisible against the dark cloth.

It was these last two that most caught Erin’s attention. They both had an aura of power about them that made the surrounding air seem to almost glow. Watching them closely, Erin saw that both of them had a dark, intricate pattern on the left sides of their faces. She couldn’t see these marks clearly, sitting behind them, but she caught glimpses of them whenever they turned their heads to the side.

When the soldiers finished assembling along the hall, there was a long moment of silent anticipation. Then Arturyn took a step forward.

“Tinilai-so, let thinra nylada galdorai-set,” he said in a voice that somehow seemed to carry through the entire hall.

He stretched out his arms, and the large door at the far end of the hall opened. The crowd cheered and then fell quiet again as a small group of people appeared in the doorway.

“Nambor ger Selanor!” came a voice from near the doors.

Squinting slightly, Erin saw a man that looked like Bredin standing near the door with a piece of paper in his hands. She guessed it was a list of people to announce as they entered.

The group made their way up the hall. The soldiers along the sides saluted as they passed and whispers fluttered through the crowd. At the head of the group walked a man and woman. They were followed by two boys and a girl who looked like they were in their teens. Behind them were several other men and women. All of them were formally dressed.

The group stopped in front of Arturyn and his four companions and bowed. Arturyn and the others bowed in response. When they had straightened, Arturyn stepped forward. The man and woman at the head of the group both stretched out a hand, and Arturyn put one of his hands on each of theirs and said something in Silmarith. The man answered him. Then they lowered their hands, and the group turned and moved to the side of the hall to stand underneath a green banner with a white tree and stars on it.

“That’s the King and Queen of Selanor,” Tabitha explained to Erin in a whisper. “The younger three are their children, and the others are the king’s advisors.”

Another group appeared at the door, and Bredin announced, “Nambor ger Isáril!”

“Nambor means ‘delegation,’” Tabitha went on as the second group made its way up the hall. “Each of the delegations from the Silmarith countries will come in to greet us and be welcomed.”

“How do they know what order to come in?” Erin asked, also whispering.

“They get a list ahead of time. It changes every Council, so none of them will feel like they’re being favored over the others. Same with the order their flags are hung in the hall and where they sit during council meetings and everything else. It takes a lot of careful politics to keep eleven countries at peace.”

Erin watched as the same process was repeated with delegations from Isáril, Grelim, Nurin, Tinur, Anoviel, Semir, Lomáril, Aner, Salimeth, and Zerahar.

The groups varied considerably in their makeup. The styles of dress changed, as did the appearance of the people. Some were darker and some were fairer. Some groups had as many as twenty or thirty people in them, and others were much smaller. More than half of them had children of various ages with them, including a newborn baby who was fast asleep in the Queen of Semir’s arms.

Most of the groups were led by a couple as Selanor’s had been, but the group from Nurin had five members who all seemed to be on equal footing. Another two groups had leaders who were alone. The party from Zerahar was led by a confident-looking young woman who had the same dark pattern on her left cheek that the man and woman standing with Arturyn did. And the King of Aner was accompanied only by a teenage boy and a dour-faced old man, making theirs the smallest group of all.

Erin watched the boy from Aner with interest. “Is that the king’s son?” she asked Tabitha while the group was walking up the hall.

“That's right. His name is….” Tabitha frowned, a look of concentration on her face. Then she shook her head. “I don’t remember. There are just too many princes and princesses in Silmar. Arturyn's the only person I know who can remember all their names. No idea how he does it.... But the king’s name is Teral Sil-Talinde, and the older man is Galeth, Teral’s chief advisor.”

“He looks really unhappy. The prince, I mean,” Erin said, watching the boy walking toward them. Unlike most of the other royal children, who looked excited and proud to be walking along with their parents, his face was solemn, and he kept his eyes on the ground.

“He always looks like that,” Tabitha said quietly. “He’s a very solitary boy. He comes with his father to Council every year, but he just stays in their chambers most of the time, I think. I don’t remember ever even hearing him talk.”

Erin watched the prince all the time his delegation was going through their ceremonial greeting and kept glancing at him after the group had gone to stand underneath their flag, which was white with a red bird in the center. The expression on his face troubled her, although she didn’t really understand why.

When all the delegations had come forward and were standing underneath their flags, Arturyn spread his arms again in a gesture of welcome and said something that made the crowd cheer. When they had fallen silent once again, he continued speaking. It sounded like he might be giving a speech.

“What’s he saying?” Erin asked.

“The same thing he says every Council, essentially,” Tabitha whispered back, rolling her eyes. “‘Welcome to Katan Jyrat. We’re glad you came and hope that everyone will enjoy their stay and that the council meeting will be very productive and that no fights will break out between any of the delegations.’ That’s the gist of it, though of course he has to say it more elegantly than that. But don’t worry—he always keeps it as short as he can.”

Sure enough, Arturyn was only talking for a few minutes. When he finished his speech, there was another cheer from the crowd.

Erin felt Tabitha give her a tug on the arm and realized that everyone on the platform was standing. She hastily stood up, too, feeling her left leg protest at suddenly unbending after being in a sitting position for so long.

The people around the sides of the hall were getting to their feet as well, but none of them moved. Everyone stood and watched as Arturyn and his four companions turned and left the room through a door behind the platform. Then the delegations also left, one at a time.

Finally, when the Queen of Zerahar and her escorts had disappeared, Tabitha put a hand on Erin’s arm, and they and the others descended from the platform in two lines and followed after them.