The Dragon's Path

we fervently pray his majesty’s royal scepter’s still in working order, because a new male heir is the best hope we have. I’ve had my genealogist look through the blood archives, and Simeon has a cousin in Asterilhold with a legitimate claim.”
    “Legitimate?” Dawson asked, leaning forward.
    “I’m afraid so, and you can’t guess this. He’s a supporter of the principle of a farmer’s council. We lose the quarter of our support with more sense that guts. The others rally around Oyer Verennin or possibly Umansin Tor, both of whom can also make a claim. Asterilhold backs its man with the help of the group Maas and Issandrian have gathered, we fight a civil war, and we lose.”
    Daskellin clapped his hands once. The candle above him sputtered. In the halls of the club, a serving girl shouted and a man laughed. Dawson’s fortified wine tasted more bitter than it had when he started it, and he put the glass down.
    “Could this have been the scheme all along?” Dawson asked. “Was Maas using Issandrian and Klin and all thathairwash about a farmer’s council just for this? We may have been aiming at the wrong target all this time.”
    “Possibly,” Daskellin said. “Or it might have been a chance he saw and decided to take. We’d have to ask Feldin, and I suspect he might not tell us the truth.”
    Dawson tapped the lip of his glass with a finger, the crystal chiming softly.
    “We can’t let Aster die,” Dawson said.
    “Everything dies. Men, cities, empires. Everything,” Daskellin said. “The timing’s the question.”
    D awson took his dinner with the family in the informal dining hall. Roast pork with apple, honeyed squash, and fresh bread with whole cloves of garlic baked into it. A cream linen cloth on the table. Ceramic dishes from Far Syramys and polished silver utensils. It could as well have been ashes served on scrap iron.
    “Geder Palliako’s come back,” Jorey said.
    “Really?” Clara said. “I don’t remember where he’d gone. Not to the south, certainly, with so many people having friends and family in Vanai. You can’t expect a decent reception when you’ve killed a person’s cousin or some such. Wouldn’t be realistic. Was he in Hallskar?”
    “The Keshet,” Jorey said around a mouthful of apple. “Came back with a pet cunning man.”
    “That’s nice for him,” Clara said. She rang for the serving girl, and then, frowning, “We don’t need to throw another revel for him, do we?”
    “No,” Dawson said.
    He knew, of course, what they were doing. Jorey bringing up odd, trivial subjects. Clara burbling on about them and turning everything into a question for him to answer. It wasthe strategy they always used in dark times to lift him up out of himself. Tonight, the burden was too heavy.
    He’d considered killing Maas. It would be difficult, of course. A direct assault was impossible. In the first place, it was expected and so would be guarded against. In the second, failure meant an even greater sympathy for Maas in the court. The idea of challenging him to a duel and then allowing things to go wrong appealed to him. He and Maas had been on the dueling grounds often enough that it wouldn’t be an obvious convenience, and men slipped all the time. Blades went deeper than intended. He had to ignore the fact that Feldin was younger, stronger, and had lost their last duel only because Dawson was cleverer. The idea was still sweet.
    “Fact is,” Barriath said as the serving girl came in, “this boat is sinking, and we’re bailing it out with a sieve.”
    “Meaning what?” Jorey said.
    “Simeon’s my king and I’ll put my life down at his word, the same as anyone,” Barriath said, “but he’s barely his own master anymore. Father stopped the Edford Charter madness, and now we’re looking at plots from Asterilhold. If we stop that, there will be another crisis after it, and another after that one.”
    “I don’t think that’s appropriate talk for the dinner table, dear,” Clara said, accepting a fresh glass of watered wine from the servant.
    “Ah, let him talk,” Dawson said. “It’s what we’re all thinking about anyway.”
    “At least wait until the help is gone,” Clara said. “Or who knows what they’ll think of us in the small quarters.”
    The servant girl left blushing. Clara watched the door close after her, then nodded to her eldest son.
    “Antea needs a king,” Barriath said. “Instead it’s got a kindly uncle. I hate to be