“The point is that the Realm didn’t know you were Septimus’s son until last year—and even then, you were way out in the hinterlands, fighting a campaign. You didn’t exactly attract a lot of visitors.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“When we get back home, that’s going to change,” Max said. “Everyone’s going to be watching you like hawks. They’re going to pry into your life in every way you could possibly imagine, and probably in some that you can’t—and every Citizen with a daughter even vaguely close to the right age is going to be hoping to turn her into the next First Lady.”
Tavi frowned.
“You want to marry Kitai,” Max said. It wasn’t a question.
Tavi nodded.
“Then you’re going to make a lot of people upset. And they’re going to pry up every little piece of information they can get against her. They’re going to try to bring pressure to bear against her, any way that they can—and if you just carried on with her the way you have been, you’d make it easy for them to begin rallying support against you.”
“I really don’t care what they think, Max,” Tavi said.
“Don’t be an idiot,” his friend replied, his voice tired. “You’re to be the First Lord of Alera. You’ve got to lead a nation filled with powerful Citizens with mutually conflicting interests. If you can’t build up enough support to accomplish that leadership, a lot of people are going to suffer because of it. You’ll try to send relief to a Count’s holding that’s been devastated by a flood but find that it’s been blocked by the Senate, or maybe choked off somewhere in the communications or financial chain. You’ll issue rulings in disputes between Lords and High Lords which they bring to you and find out that both sides were setting you up to look bad, regardless of what you did—and eventually, because that would be the point of the whole thing, someone will try to take the crown away from you.”
Tavi rubbed at his chin, studying Max. His friend’s words were… not what he’d really expected of him. Max had a fantastic instinct for analyzing tactical and strategic situations, a gift that his training at the Academy had sharpened and honed—but this kind of thinking was out of character for his old friend.
Tavi inhaled deeply, understanding. “Kitai came to you to talk about it.”
“Couple of weeks ago,” Max said.
Tavi shook his head. “Bloody crows.”
“I don’t know if it will work,” Max said. “Making your courtship a semi-public event, I mean.”
“Do you think it might?”
Max shrugged. “I think it will give the people who do support you a way to counter anyone who tries to start using Kitai to drum up some opposition. If you’ve courted her with the same consideration that would be expected of a young Aleran lady highly placed in the Citizenry, it lends her a certain amount of status by association.” He frowned. “And besides…”
Tavi sensed his friend’s sudden reluctance to speak. He shook his head, feeling a smile tug wearily at the corners of his mouth. “Max,” he said quietly, “just say it.”
“Bloody crows, Calderon.” Maximus sighed. “I’m the one who treats girls like disposable pleasures. You’ve always been the smart one. The capable one. The one who went to every class and studied and did well. You’re the one coming up with ways to use furycraft that no one’s ever dreamed of before, and you can barely use it. You’ve gone up against Canim and Marat and vord queens alike, and you’re still in one piece.” He met Tavi’s eyes, and said, “I know that you don’t think of Kitai the way I thought of my lovers. She’s not a playmate. You see her as your equal. Your ally.”
Tavi nodded, and murmured, “Yes.”
Max shrugged and dropped his eyes. “Maybe she deserves some romance, too, Calderon. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt you to go out of your way to make her feel special. Not because she can fight, or because she’s practically a princepsa of her own people. But just because you want to show her. You want her to know how much you care.”
Tavi stared at Max for a moment and felt somewhat thunderstruck.
Max was right.
He and Kitai had been together for a very long time. They had shared everything with one another. Whenever she had been gone, it had left an enormous, restless hole somewhere inside him that adamantly refused to be filled. So many things had happened to them together—but he hadn’t ever really spoken to her about the depth of his feelings. She’d known, of course, just as he had been able to sense her devotion to him through the odd link the two of them shared.
But some things needed to be said before they could be truly real.
And some things couldn’t be said. They had to be done.
Bloody crows. He’d never asked her what the marriage customs of her people were. He’d never even thought to ask.
“Crows,” Tavi said, calmly. “I… Max, I think you have a point.”
Max spread his hands. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“All right,” Tavi said. “Then… I suppose that while I’m finding a way to get the rest of Alera to accept the Canim’s help, and figuring out how to defeat the vord, and coming up with enough support to actually be the First Lord, I’ll have to work an epic romance into the schedule.”
“That’s why you’re the Princeps, and I’m just a humble Tribune,” Max said.
“I… I don’t really know much about being romantic,” Tavi said.
“Neither do I,” Max said cheerfully. “But look at it this way. It won’t need to be much to improve on what’s gone before.”
Tavi made a growling sound and reached for his empty mug.
Max opened the door and saluted, banging his right fist against his armored chest, grinning openly at Tavi. “I’ll see to the incoming boats, Your Highness, and make sure everyone finds his way to your cabin.”
Tavi held on to the mug. It wouldn’t do to throw it at Max in plain view of everyone on deck. He put the mug down, gave Max a look that promised eventual repayment, and said, “Thank you, Tribune. Shut the door on your way out, please.”
Max departed and shut the door, and Tavi sank tiredly back onto his chair. He looked at the maps spread out on his desk—and drew out the one he hadn’t shown the others. Alera had helped him with it. It showed the spread of the vord croach over the face of Alera, like gangrene oozing into the body from an infected wound.
The vord had to number in the hundreds of thousands by now, perhaps even in the millions.
Tavi shook his head ruefully. It said something about the world, he thought, that the vord threat was arguably the second most perplexing problem he had. He wasn’t sure what, but it definitely said something.
CHAPTER 2
“Gentlemen, Warmaster,” Tavi said. “Thank you for coming.” He looked around his cabin at the gathering of what he’d come to think of as his campaign council. “In the next few hours, your troops will be learning what I’m about to tell you. You’ll need to know it first.”
He paused to take a steadying breath and to make sure that his expression and body language were calm. It wouldn’t do to let them see him nervous, given the gravity of what he was about to explain. And it wouldn’t do to let the Canim see him nervous under any circumstances.
“The vord have already attacked Alera,” Tavi said. “The first assault was beaten back, but not broken. Ceres has fallen. As has Alera Imperia. In the time we’ve been sailing home, other cities may have fallen as well.”
Dead silence settled on the ship’s cabin.
Nasaug turned his dark-furred head to Varg. The Canim Warmaster twitched an ear and kept his blood-colored eyes on Tavi.
“What’s more,” Tavi continued, “the First Lord, my grandfather, Gaius Sextus, was slain while fighting a holding action to give the folk of the capital a chance to escape.”