Outside, the rain still came down in great gusts, and torches spluttered under the eaves, their glow reflecting off the puddles. We hurried along beneath a colonnade and passed a slave girl who was scrubbing blood from the wall. The rain smelled like iron, and everything was water, darkness, and death.

  The mustachioed White Cat was following us again. The doors of the palace buildings stood open, and rain swept in across their floors. The receiving halls were empty, the clerk’s workrooms lay in shadow, and the papers left on the slim desks thick and heavy with humidity. Where was my son? I had expected the palace to be a hive of activity, with every clerk hurrying to copy out orders, and the guardsmen pacing about, regarding everyone they met through slitted, suspicious eyes. The quiet heaviness of the empty rooms was eerie, and I was afraid.

  We rounded the corner of the kitchens and found Papermaker blocking our path. She had four thugs with her, the rain pressing their pinned paper to their chests. The ink drawings of the cat had run, turning the bandits’ talisman into nothing but a wet smear. But there was a look of snide triumph in their eyes.

  “Where is Yaendrid?” Papermaker asked.

  “We lost her at Nhadtereyba,” I said.

  “Lost her?”

  “She left us. I thought that she was returning to you.”

  Papermaker frowned. “Not to us.” We were yelling because of the rain. She raised her face to the storm, and water thrummed against her smugness. “Come,” she said.

  I glanced back. The mustachioed bandit had been joined by several others. I glanced at Vaenahma. They shrugged. So we followed.

  The king was sitting on his throne. It is a very square, very heavy throne, and it always seems to drag down the body that sits in it. Yet the king was even more slumped than usual. His fastidious face was unshaven and somehow blurry, as if he lacked the will to sharpen his expression. His eyes were sunken, and his mouth hung slightly open.

  There was a woman standing before him, a Sasturi. She was the center of everyone’s attention as we entered the room, but their attention shifted, and suddenly Prince Chahsaeda was coming forward to take Iyedraeka’s hands. He acted with great propriety, as if the eyes of the court were on him, but the court consisted only of the White Cats, Oesair, their leader, and the strange Sasturi. The Sasturi turned, and I realized that I knew her. She was Hahnteyn, the master of Rahasabahst Weaver’s Guild.

  She saw Martiveht and some of the anxiety eased from her eyes. “Martiveht,” she said in a soft voice that sounded dusty, as if she often neglected to use it.

  “Hahnteyn,” Martiveht replied. There was something cold and a little formal in her manner, and I wondered if the two mediums liked each other.

  “The king is possessed. It is beyond my power.”

  I saw Martiveht’s shoulders rise and fall. The smallest gesture, but full of exhaustion, and even despair. But she stepped past Hahnteyn and up onto the dais before the throne. She looked down, waiting, and after a moment the king lifted his head. She placed her hands on his cheeks. Then she shocked me and, I think, Chahsaeda, by bending down and kissing him on the lips.

  A strange, rattling sound came from the king’s chest, and Oesair, who was standing at the foot of the dais, tensed his big body. Chahsaeda dropped Iyedraeka’s hands and took a step forward. My hand dropped to my hilt. But what was I going to do? Kill Martiveht for kissing the king? It did sound very much like a death rattle, though.

  And then the king was standing, and Martiveht was falling, and the king was trying to catch her. He failed, and she lay crumpled at his feet. Iyedraeka gave a little cry. Vaenahma slid forward, slipping past the White Cats, and picked her up. They brought her back to Hahnteyn, who stood, staring down at her, and then reached out and smoothed her hair.

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  “It is only a trance,” she said, and there was something dismissive and amused in the way she said it. “We will take her to the Weaver’s House. She will recover.”

  “Father?” Chahsaeda asked, stepping forward.

  Old Poritifahr lifted his face. “Son,” he said. “Son, I am here. You are safe.” Then he started to shiver, and sat back down on the throne. He lifted a hand and shaded his eyes, and he wept.

  It startled and frightened everyone. I looked around, wondering what had become of his handmaidens, and there they were, skittering forward from the shadows, virginal and loyal all of their lives. The Abandoned Maidens flocked around him, the torchlight glinting off the silver threads of their robes, and I couldn’t tell if they were giving him comfort or trying to find it.

  Oesair was triumphant. I had stood across from him in the inn at Loesohso’s Grove and hadn’t noticed the thinness of his face. Perhaps it was because he had been drawing, and his pinched features had seemed concentrated, and not a constant part of his visage. But he wasn’t drawing now, and I saw that his eyes were too close together, and that his nose was a sharp and unforgiving line.

  “Fetch the brothers,” he said to Papermaker. Then he turned to the dais. “King Poritifahr,” he said in a commanding voice, and the weeping king raised his head. “King Poritifahr, do you remember what we were speaking about, as we waited for the Sasturi to heal you?”

  Old Poritifahr narrowed his eyes, and for a moment looked like himself again. Then he nodded. It was a very timid nod, the nod of a child who isn’t sure that he’s gotten an instruction right. “My guard…” he started to say.

  “They are all mad. The shrine has driven them mad. As it drove you mad. You have only us, now.”

  “My brothers.”

  Oesair gestured dismissively with a hand. “We shall see.”

  “My son.”

  “I’m here, father,” Chahsaeda said, stepping forward.

  Oesair nodded. “He will command us.”

  “Yes, father,” Chahsaeda said, although I could hear uncertainty in his voice. “It is for the best. Just for a little while. You need soldiers, father, and the White Cats rescued you.”

  I glanced at Vaenahma, who had set Martiveht down on the floor. Iyedraeka was kneeling beside her, as was the Guild Master. Vaenahma met my gaze, but their expression was unreadable.

  There was a sound at the door. Duke Khuldara strode into the room, Duke Ibansarjae a stride behind him. A strange thing about these brothers. Duke Khuldara was younger, but he commanded Ibansarjae at all times. If Poritifahr were to die, then Dasuekoh, then Chahsaeda, Ibansarjae would be king. But it would be Khuldara who ruled. Only he wouldn’t enjoy it, and neither would his brother. King Poritifahr had been safe from plots and intrigues throughout his reign, for no other reason than that his brothers were content with their duchies.

  The two dukes were followed by a retinue of soldiers. Andraescav was among them, standing very straight, his mustaches quivering. He saw me and he seemed to blush, which was very surprising. I wondered if I had ever seen him blush before. Setrabohst was there, too, but he had slipped so completely into the role of a soldier that I didn’t recognize him at first. When I finally spotted him, I was surprised by the expression on his face. He was staring at his uncle, the king, with a look that mingled pity and wonder and something else. Disappointment? Regret?

  Khuldara stopped a few paces into the room. He looked about, taking in the scene. “My King?” he asked, as if unsure whether the shape seated on the throne was really his brother.

  Poritifahr stared back at him. “I am…I am on the mend, Khuldara. The ghost…” He shivered, then went on. “The ghost is gone.”

  “What ghost was that, my King?”

  Poritifahr pursed his lips. His face thinned with distaste. But he said the name. “Ahtraeyed. Ahtraeyed the First. The founder of our dynasty.”

  So there it was. Ahtraeyed, the bandit and the bully, had seized him while he was in the shrine and clung to him, which should not have been possible within the sphere of a spirit stone’s magnetism. Ahtraeyed, the rapist, the murderer, the thief, the thug. Ahtraeyed, the great hero of Prince Dasuekoh, who had caused all of this to happen. Ahtraeyed, who was now inside of Martiveht, as she lay upon the floor.