Talon had given him twenty ten-marks for his twentieth birthday—the first and only time he’d held that much spending money. It still felt like a fortune.

After deducting the expenses for the town treasury and the Grayhaven estate, he figured he would have four hundred gold marks as an annual personal income from the town’s tithes. He’d need a few new clothes in the coming months and there would be the expense for the occasional evening’s entertainment, but he knew how to live lean. Hell’s fire, he’d been doing it his whole life. That’s why he had decided to give his Lady half of that income as a special surprise.

Kermilla walked into the sitting room. “The bastard butler said you wanted to see me.”

“He’s not a bastard, Kermilla,” Theran said. “You know it’s unkind to insult a man by saying he has no father.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then let’s say it describes his temper and attitude if you don’t want to besmirch whatever bloodlines he can claim.” Then she saw the gold marks and her breath caught.

He almost reconsidered what he was going to do, but maybe her recent bitchiness was a sign of frustration. There was little society in the town and less public entertainment that she felt was worthy of her notice. And she seemed to find his efforts at lovemaking less and less enjoyable—so much so, he’d stopped asking for sex and decided to wait for her invitation.

“What’s that?” she asked, eyeing the gold marks.

He held them out. “This is for you.”

She took the fanned marks and counted them twice. “Two hundred gold marks? Theran, where did you get this?”

He shrugged and smiled, warmly pleased by the light in her eyes. “I know there hasn’t been much money and the income hasn’t arrived from your village’s tithes. Winsol starts in three days, and I thought you’d enjoy doing a bit of shopping.”

She’d been hinting hard enough that the failure of her Steward to send the income owed to her was making it impossible for her to buy any gifts for her family or to select the expected gifts for her Steward, Master of the Guard, and Consort—or to buy anything for him.

The gift itself wasn’t important. It was the fact that Kermilla wanted to give him one. He hadn’t had a gift from a woman since he’d left his mother when he was seven years old.

“Oh, Theran!”

Kermilla threw her arms around him and kissed him with enough heat to fire his blood. Before he could get another good taste of her, she backed away, wagging a finger at him while she smiled playfully.

“That’s for later,” she said. “Now I have to see what’s left in the shops.”

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he said, trying to keep his voice light but hoping she heard the warning to spend carefully.

“Silly man,” she said as she danced out of the parlor.

A few minutes later, he looked out a window and saw her heading down the drive in the pony cart with one of the stable lads as her driver. He also saw a man in a messenger’s livery walking up the drive. Not a messenger from the town. One of them would have come on horseback. This man must have ridden the Winds and arrived at the landing web just beyond Grayhaven’s gates.

He started to go to his study, then turned and headed for the front door. Any message coming here was most likely for him anyway. No point having Julien track him down when he could be on hand.

He timed it so it looked like he was passing through the entranceway on his way to the stairs when Julien opened the door and took the message.

The messenger’s tone sounded courteous, but there was clearly something on the man’s mind. Theran saw hot anger in the eyes that stared at him before Julien shut the door and handed him the wax-sealed heavy paper.

Theran broke the seal and opened the message—and wished he’d waited until he’d reached the privacy of his study.

“Trouble?” Julien asked.

He shook his head. “Already taken care of.”

“I know what that phrase means—a bitch got buried. Will anyone weep?”

The coldness of Julien’s words stung him.

He went into his study and locked the door. Just a physical lock, just an indication he wanted no company and no one disturbing him.

He read the words again and again. As he sat there through the morning, staring at letters and reports and seeing nothing, he was glad he’d given Kermilla the gold marks—glad she would find some sweetness in what would be a bitter day.

Of the two hundred gold marks Theran had given her that morning, she had ten left. She’d meant to be careful, she really had, but it felt so good to have money again that she couldn’t stop herself from buying all the things she’d been denied.

She’d regained some control at the end when she realized she had to come back with some packages that were gifts for other people—things she could let Theran see. He didn’t have to know that she’d grabbed a few things off the shelves of a shop an aristo wouldn’t normally enter and had put those gifts into the boxes of the things she’d bought for herself in the only aristo merchant shop left in the whole dung-heap town. If he noticed that the quality of the goods didn’t match the implied quality of the box, he would blame the merchant.

She’d known he was being stingy and had been holding back on giving her any money. But she’d worn him down until he finally acknowledged that she deserved a Queen’s due—and a Queen’s income.

Theran was like her father in that way. He’d grumped and grumbled about her spending, had asked her—almost begged her sometimes—to be less extravagant, but he always ended up giving her the marks she needed to pay for the clothes or the entertainments that were vital to bringing herself to the notice of the men who had enough reputation and potential to form a court around her and provide her with a place to rule that would, in turn, provide her with the income she deserved.

Theran wouldn’t be happy that she’d spent all the marks he’d given her, but she’d wiggle more out of him.

“Good afternoon, Julien.” She kept her tone frigidly polite.

“I trust you had a pleasant outing,” he replied.

No matter how cold she made her voice, the damn butler would match it—and then add just a little more ice.

“Prince Theran is in his study,” Julian said. “He asked that you join him there when you returned.”

She handed him the basket of packages. “Take these up to my room, if that won’t interfere too much with your other duties.”

He tipped his head in a bow that was less than he should have given her.

She knocked on the door and felt a quiver of uneasiness when she heard the click of the lock turning before the door opened.

Theran stood halfway between his desk and the door, as if he couldn’t decide where he was supposed to be.

“You enjoyed yourself?” he asked.

She rushed up to him and gave him an enthusiastic hug. “I did. And I was pleased to see so many people doing a little something to make the town look festive for Winsol.” She played with a button on his shirt, looked up at him through her lashes, and gave him the smile that always made men sigh indulgently before doing what she wanted. “But I was a little bit careless because everything looked so wonderful.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “So I’m going to need more money in order to finish my shopping for Winsol.”

She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the way he seemed to step away from her without actually moving. A bad miscalculation on her part. She should have remembered that he wasn’t used to aristo measurements of spending. A trifling expense to her was an almost unthinkable extravagance to him.

“I’m sorry, Kermilla.” Now he did step back. “I gave you everything that could be spared from the tithes and the estate. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.”

“Oh, Theran.” She grasped his hands. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I see this grand house, and I forget that . . .” No, that wasn’t the right way to regain the ground she’d just lost.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Why not? That he gave up without anger or arguing troubled her.

“I need to talk to you about something else.” He led her over to the stuffed chair and footstool that were tucked on one side of the room. Once she was settled in the chair, he sat on the footstool.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Something bad. She could tell that much.

“It’s about your friend Correne.”

“Theran, I haven’t even written to her lately, so if she’s making remarks about Cassidy—”

“She’s dead, Kermilla. She enraged a Warlord Prince who was visiting friends for Winsol and he killed her, right on the main street in full view of half the village.”

She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. “Why?”

Theran took her hands. The warmth of his hands showed her how cold she’d become, chilled to the bone by his words.

“She wasn’t liked or trusted by the Warlord Princes who lived near her village,” Theran said. “Whatever leash had kept some of her behavior under control disappeared after her visit here. She’d been shopping and stole some items. Didn’t even try to be subtle about it. A boy who was in the shop with his older brothers saw her and told the merchant, who then reported her to the village guards. She claimed that the merchant should give her those things as ‘gifts’ because she was a Queen.” He snorted softly. “Which just proved she’d been tainted by the bitches who had ruled here before.”

She didn’t realize she’d been whimpering until he made soothing noises.

“I’m sorry, Kermilla, but it’s important that you know what this girl was like. You have to understand that befriending her and being influenced by her the way you were is going to make it harder for the Warlord Princes and Queens to trust you. They aren’t going to tolerate having that kind of Queen rule in Dena Nehele. Not again.”

She didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak.

“She had to reveal everything she had taken. Because of her age, the humiliation was deemed sufficient punishment. But the next day, she attacked the boy when he was out with friends . . .” Theran closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were filled with grief. “The village council didn’t give me the details. I can find out if you need to know. But they called in Healers from neighboring villages to help the village Healer. Even with that much skill, not all of what she did to the boy can be healed. He acted with honor—and he’ll never be the same because of what she did.”

“The Warlord Prince who was in the village hunted Correne down and executed her on the main street.”

She swallowed against the sickness clogging her throat. “What did they do to him? What did they do to the bastard who killed a Queen?”

He gave her a queer look. “Nothing. He did the same thing he’d been doing his whole life—eliminating an enemy who had no honor.”

She pulled her hands out of his. “I don’t feel well. I’m going up to my room to rest.”

“Of course.” He stood up and held out a hand.

She didn’t want to touch him. Wasn’t sure she could stand to touch him.

She’d known the males here could be brutal. After all, every Warlord Prince was brutal. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to see that Theran wasn’t any different from the rest of them.

She looked into his eyes and saw grief for the boy, who was still alive, and no regret—none at all—for Correne’s death. Did she really want to live among these people? Could she survive among these people?

She stood up, avoiding his hand. Somehow, that didn’t surprise him.

He opened the door for her. She walked out of the study.

Theran’s dismissal of Correne’s death troubled her, even scared her—but it didn’t scare her half as much as seeing the dark pleasure in Julien’s eyes and knowing that pleasure was there because he’d heard the news.