Traitor's Moon

with honor for more than four decades. Now, unbeknownst to all but her closest advisers, she was too weak to lift it unaided.
    Her thick grey hair fell smoothly over her shoulders beneath her golden circlet, hiding her thin neck. Soft leather gauntlets covered withered hands. Her wasted body was muffled in robes to hide the extent of her decline. The drysian’s infusions blunted the pain enough not to tax her exhausted heart, but there were limits to even their powers. It took Thero’s magic to limn the semblance of flesh and color in the queen’s cheeks and lend false power to her voice. Only her pale blue eyes were unchanged, sharply alert as an osprey’s.
    The effect was flawless. The pity of it was that such deception must be practiced on Idrilain’s own children.
    The queen’s two consorts had given her three children each, the two triads as different as the men who’d fathered them. The elder three—Princess Phoria, her twin Korathan, and their sister Aralain, were tall, fair, and solemn.
    Klia, the youngest and sole survivor of the second three, had the same handsome features, chestnut hair, and ready wit as the father and two brothers for whom she still wore a black baldric. Of these six, it had always been the eldest and youngest girls whom the Orëska wizards watched most closely.
    Skilled and fearless in battle, Phoria had risen through the ranks of the Queen’s Horse Guard to High Commander of the Skalan Cavalry. Nearing fifty now, she was as renowned in military circles for her tactical innovations as she was at court for her blunt speech and ill-starred barrenness. While her merits as a warrior might havebeen sufficient for the crown in her great-grandmother’s day, times had changed and Magyana was not the only one to fear that Phoria lacked the vision to rule a nation touched by the intricacies of the wider world.
    Just before his death Nysander had also hinted to Magyana of a breach between heir and queen, but was forestalled by some oath from revealing more.
    â€œWe are the oldest of the Orëska wizards now, my love. No one knows better than we how precariously the common good balances on the edge of Ghërilain’s Sword,” he’d warned. “Keep close to the throne, and to all those who might one day sit upon it.”
    Magyana turned her attention back to Klia and felt a familiar surge of fondness. At twenty-five, she not only commanded a full squadron of Queen’s Horse, but had demonstrated a talent for diplomacy, as well. It was no secret that a good many Skalans wished she was the firstborn.
    Idrilain raised her hand and the assembly fell silent. “We will lose this war,” she began, her voice a husky wheeze.
    Magyana silently guided a stream of her own life force into the woman’s ravaged body. The connection brought a backwash of pain, threading her veins with the dull crush of Idrilain’s suffering and exhaustion. Magyana forced herself to breathe slowly, letting her mind rise above it and retain its focus. Across the room, Thero was doing the same.
    â€œWe will lose this war without Aurënen,” Idrilain continued, sounding stronger. “We need the Aurënfaie’s strength, and their wizards to turn the tide of Plenimaran necromancy. And if Mycena falls, we will need Aurënfaie trade, as well: horses, weapons, food.”
    â€œWe’ve done well enough without the ’faie,” Phoria retorted. “Plenimar hasn’t managed to push us back from the Folcwine, for all their necromancers and abominations.”
    â€œBut they will!” Idrilain croaked. An attendant offered her a goblet but she waved it away; no one must see the tremor in her hands. “Even if we manage to defeat them, we shall need the Aurënfaie after the war. We need their blood mingled with our own again.”
    She gestured imperiously for Magyana to continue.
    â€œThe power of wizardry came to our people by the mingling of our two races, human and Aurënfaie,” Magyana began, reminding those who needed reminding of their own history. “It was the Aurënfaie who taught our first wizards the ways of Orëska magic.” She turned to the Royal Kin. “You yourselves still carry the memory ofthat blood, the legacy of Idrilain the First and her Aurënfaie consort, Corruth í Glamien. Since his murder and the closing of Aurënen’s borders against us three centuries ago, few