The Dragon's Path

family needs a father,” the king said, as if the words were funny and bitter both. “When Eleora died, I promised her I’d take care of our son. Not the prince, our son.”
    “Aster
is
the prince,” Dawson said.
    “If he weren’t, he would still be my son. You have children. You understand.”
    “I have three sons and a daughter. Barriath captains a ship under Lord Skestinin, Vicarian is studying for the priesthood, and Jorey’s in Vanai. Elisia married Lord Annerin’s eldest son three years ago, and I’ve barely heard of her since. And none of them, Simeon, have made me
timid,
” Dawson said. And then, more softly, “What happened to you?”
    Simeon laughed.
    “I became king. It’s all well and good when we were playing at it in the yards and on the battlefields, but then Father died. It wasn’t play anymore. Issandrian’s cabal isn’t my only problem. Hallskar’s begun harboring raiders again. Northcoast’s aiming for another war of succession and Asterilhold’s backing both sides. The tax revenues from Estinford aren’t what they should be, so someone’s either stealing them or the farms are starting to fail. And in a few years, Aster’s to step up and run it all.”
    “Not so few,” Dawson said. “We’re not young, but we’ve got life in us yet. And you know the answer to this as well as I do. Find men you trust, and then trust them.”
    “Meaning you and your cabal instead of Issandrian and his?” the king asked dryly.
    “Yes. Meaning that.”
    “I’d rather you backed away. Let Issandiran’s movement collapse from within.”
    “It won’t.”
    King Simeon looked up, and his eyes might have held anger or amusement or despair. Dawson sank deliberately to his knee, a man giving obeisance to his king. The angle of his chin and his shoulders made it a challenge.
Here is my loyalty. Deserve it.
    “You should go, old friend,” the king said. “I need to rest before the feast. I need to think.”
    Dawson rose, bowed silently, and left for his own rooms. Lord Ternigan’s estate sprawled. It had been built over the course of centuries by uncountable designers, each it seemed with his own conflicting vision. The result was a labyrinth. Every courtyard and square opened in some unexpected way, hallways angled and turned to avoid obstacles long since unmade. There was no better invitation for a quiet knife from the shadows.
    He let the king’s servant put him into his coat, drape the thick black wool cloak across his shoulders, and bow before stepping out into the white wind. Vincen Coe stepped behind him. Dawson didn’t speak to the man, and the hunter offered no report. With only the creak of leather and their snow-muffled footsteps, they crossed the courtyard, passed through a series of overhung walkways, and across a wide, flat bridge where the wind threatened to whip them away like sparrows in a storm. There were warmer paths, but they were better peopled, and so more dangerous. If Issandrian and Maas wanted to strike at Dawson, they’d have to work for it.
    The hospitality that Ternigan had offered House Kalliam included a private house that had once belonged to a king’s favored concubine. The stonework had a vulgar sensuality, the gardens before it—no doubt lush in spring—were now hardly more than a collection of twigs and dead scrub. But it was defensible, and Dawson appreciated it for that. He shrugged off his cloak and his bodyguard at the door and entered the warm, dark inner rooms to the smell of mint tea and the sound of a woman weeping.
    For a horrible moment, he thought the voice was Clara’s, but the years had trained him to pick her sounds out from any others, and these sobs were not hers. Quietly, he tracked the weeping and, as he drew nearer, Clara’s soothing voice to a sitting chamber where the long-dead concubine had once taken her ease. Now Clara sat there on a low divan, her cousin Phelia—Baroness of Ebbinbaugh and wife of the hated Feldin Maas—sitting on the floor before her, her head resting in Clara’s lap. Dawson met his wife’s gaze, and Clara shook her head without a pause in her soft litany of comfort. Dawson stepped back. He went to the private study to smoke his pipe, drink whiskey, and work on a poem he’dstarted composing until Clara came, an hour later, and dropped herself unceremoniously into his lap.
    “Poor Phelia,” she sighed.
    “Domestic trouble?” Dawson asked, stroking his wife’s hair. She plucked the pipe from his