I glared at him, but he would not meet my eye.

“Indeed,” the Mede murmured, forfeiting any tolerance I might have had for him. He turned to me and said earnestly, “Your Majesty, you can count on our support. We have the ships to patrol your coast and to retake your islands from Attolia. We have the armies to aid you here on land. With our help, you can be secure on your throne.”

I said, “Our thanks, Excellency. I believe we would benefit more from your gold . . . as Attolia did.”

Akretenesh’s expression didn’t change, but it was a hit. We both knew that the Mede emperor had provided gold to Attolia, thinking he was buying control over her country from a foolish queen. If he had been successful, Akretenesh wouldn’t have been in a tent in the dark with me, offering his emperor’s support. Instead, Attolia would be a subject state, invading us with those very same Mede armies at her back.

“Permit me to say that your youth is refreshing, Your Majesty, but perhaps it should be tempered by experience. Will you have a regent?”

“Nonsense,” said my father.

“Surely he is not confirmed king? Not yet elected by your barons?”

It’s true that the kings in Sounis are confirmed in a meeting of all the barons, but I was the appointed heir. My father explained that in such cases, the Barons’ Meet was a formality.

He extolled my many virtues in the fight at Hanaktos and the escape afterward. A year earlier I would have been gratified. Contrariwise, all I felt was resentment at being talked of as if I were a tent pole. Behind my father, the magus was signaling. He hadn’t liked my comment about the Attolian gold, and he didn’t want me pricking the ambassador.

“He is a fine king already!” my father said in conclusion.

Eyeing the magus, I demurred. “His Excellency may be right, Father,” I said. The magus nodded, and my father stared at me.

“Perhaps the right regent,” hinted the magus.

My father opened his mouth to call me a fool and froze. As the magus had pointed out earlier, I was his king. His ambitions had elevated me beyond his dictatorial control. He turned on the magus instead. “This is your doing,” he snarled. “You have corrupted him with your incessant nattering. Next he will say that we go to Melenze.”

“I do,” I said. “I do say we should go to Melenze. You will take the army north immediately.”

That was the bitter end of my brief moment in the sunshine of my father’s affection. It was also the beginning of a shouting match between the magus and my father that could be heard on the other side of the camp, never mind the other side of the tent walls.

My father accused the magus of manipulating me and of being a power-hungry monster. The magus called my father beef witted and lamented the combination of his dim wits and his short temper. All this in front of the Mede ambassador. My father has always been prone to temper, and the magus acid-tongued, but they were like schoolboys. I hardly knew the magus. I feared I had made a terrible mistake following his lead, and Akretenesh didn’t help, spreading oil on the waters only to set fire to it.

I didn’t know what to do. I stood there indecisive, until suddenly the magus fell silent and seemed to be staring intently at the ground. So strange was his behavior that even my father paused in his diatribe. The magus looked up, and his face was almost purple. He took a single explosive breath, the color drained out of his face, and he fell at my feet.

“Magus!” I squealed, and dropped to my knees beside him. I shouted at my father to call the camp physician and cradled the magus’s head. His color was better, but he was insensible. I ignored the Mede ambassador’s hastily excusing himself and listened for a heartbeat. I sighed in relief when I heard it and then waited impatiently for the physician.

The magus stirred in my arms and whispered brokenly, “I am fine. My tent, take me to my tent.”

My father returned with the physician, both looking concerned. I helped lift the magus and carry him to his tent. We laid him on a bed there, and I stood wringing my hands while the physician listened to his heart and tried to get him to speak. I told my father that he should prepare for Hanaktos’s attack. My father wanted to disagree, but he looked to the magus, lying nearly insensible on the bed, and acquiesced. I told him that if Hanaktos did not attack, we should move north anyway, as soon as possible. He clamped his jaw and, when I didn’t back down, bowed without speaking and left. The magus’s hand lifted, and he reached for me.

I went to him and bent to hear him as he whispered again. “Speak to you,” he said hoarsely. “Private.”

“Yes,” I said, “yes,” and chased away the physician and his assistants, who seemed to have nothing useful to do anyway.

When we were alone, I bent over the magus again. He opened his eyes and sat up so quickly I nearly knocked heads with him.

“You fraud!” I said.

He held up his hands for silence. “Indeed,” he said quietly, “I could think of no other way out of the tent. Your Majesty, we must get you out of the camp immediately.”

“We will be prepared for Hanaktos’s attack,” I assured him.

“There is more, I am afraid. I fear that you will be conveniently dead in the attack, and I can think of no way to prevent this except to flee.” He watched my face closely as he said, “Akretenesh has too many supporters here.”

He was warning me that I was going to be assassinated by my father’s men.

I thought he couldn’t be serious. Things couldn’t be that bad, but he was already up from his bed, stuffing clothes into a set of saddlebags.

“Why is the Mede ambassador in the camp at all?” I asked.

“Your father. He cannot stand the idea that Melenze wants Haptia back and thinks that the Medes are a better ally. I am sorry. My every effort to change his mind has entrenched him deeper. I should have stayed in the mountains of Eddis.”

I shook my head. No one could have convinced my father to cede land back to the Melenzi. “Akretenesh only suggested a regent in order to set you and my father against each other.”

“Indeed. It was a fine distraction from the immediacy of Hanaktos’s attack. We must get you safely away.”

“But they need me as a pawn,” I said. “Why would they want me dead?”

The magus snatched a few things from a writing desk. I’d forgotten his lopsided smile. “A pawn,” he emphasized. “You are not one. They cannot afford to have you independent of their control, with your father’s army at your back.”

“I saw your signals,” I protested.

The magus shook his head. “Akretenesh saw as well.”

“Ah,” I said, “er.”

“Indeed. Not only have we convinced him that you are more cunning than they realized, but we’ve also made it clear that if you were a puppet, it would be me pulling your strings. A mistake all around, and my fault. I apologize, My King.”

I shuddered at the address as if someone were walking over my future gravesite. “What about my father?” I asked.

“I believe that he will go north as he was told. Especially after Hanaktos attacks. We can decide on a safe place to rejoin him later,” the magus said.

“No,” I said. “My father will take the army north on his own. You and I go to Attolia.”