CHAPTER II: The Flaw in the Plan

It wasn't until an hour and a half later that Garrera zipped his pants, and the woman in the room straightened the hems of her dress to look exactly as she had come. She came up close to him, put her hands on his broad chest, and smiled at him as he buttoned his pale shirt.

'You did that like a king,' she said. He said nothing. She exited the room, still smiling to herself. She was now returning to her farm home, where her husband-to-be was waiting eagerly to see the beauty that his father had managed to bring to him. She was smiling, not because of him, but because the flesh in her undergarments was tumescent from excitement.

Garrera didn't exit the room until he was sure he didn't smell suspicious. It was dangerous to both look and smell suspicious. The odor from his malicious promiscuity was too common to the noses of frontiersmen and women—Oreum had two booming brothels—that he couldn't risk it. It was lunch time, he had set the time by his rules, and there would be more than just him and his wife by the table. There would be his wife's attendant Pithadia, his niece whom he had taken into his care since she was orphaned at fourteen, the keeper of the house, as well as his lieutenant, who was scheduled to visit today. When he got to the simple dining hall, everything was set on the table, and the usual partakers of this meal were there. Except two. Garrera didn't notice this at first, and two minutes of small talk passed, during which those present began to eat. Five minutes. Garrera's guilty conscience was beginning to be of less concern than his wife's absence. That was accentuated by Pithadia's absence too. Still, the man's optimistic side kept him from asking the very important question. Eight minutes. Garrera dropped his fork with a clunk onto the clay plate. That was bad mannered, so everyone's gaze quickly turned to him. He was very cold despite having eaten warm food, and was looking the direction of the entrance for the slightest chance that Esella would appear. She did not.

'Where's my wife?' he asked suddenly. The word "wife" almost refused to be uttered. The silence in the room was only reinforced by that demand. He turned to the nearest maid, who was stationed by the exit during the entire meal to fulfil any nutritional wishes. This maid knew.

'Where is she?'

'I do not know, sir,' her womanly nature did not allow her to betray another female creature, especially the Lady of the Manor. But the General, well, was a General. He could easily smell the deceit. His moustache twitched. He looked away from the maid and looked straight ahead of him, and took a deep breath to cool the indignation that was building up in him like a dam. His massive fists were either side of the dinner plate, and the fist that held the fork bent it slightly. His forehead was beginning to reveal his veins, and slightly getting wet with sweat. The General was pissed.

'You will say the truth this time,' he said calmly. These would be his last calm words this afternoon, 'where is she?'

Everyone in the room was now staring at the maid with faces that implored her to not make another horrible error. She got the memo.

'Sir,' she stammered, 'she came to the kitchen some time ago and took Pithadia with her. I do not know where she went.'

Garrera was incensed. He raised his fists and smashed the table, causing it to bounce and lift the contents on it, including two water cups that were upset. The maid flinched in fright, letting off a little squeal like a trampled rat. His lieutenant towered up quickly, arose and left the room just as Garrera was bellowing about not being told earlier. He was in on the act. He knew. He knew what was at stake if Lady Esella was by the slightest chance headed for Chaldea, the capital. She needed to be stopped, quickly. He shot straight for the main gate of the manor, where a stationed ten man garrison was waiting, where they were busy laughing and cracking jokes like goons. They immediately fell silent when they saw the Major, and stood upright.

'How did you not find it important to tell me that the General's wife left without him?' was what Major Alain angrily spat at the men.

'The General's wife, sir?' said the squad leader, who began examining his men's faces for a clue that they knew something he didn't, 'she hasn't left, sir. We would have seen her.'

Lieutenant Alain was about to berate the men again when it dawned on him that perhaps the Lady had actually not exited the manor. Not from this gate.

'Does this place have a backdoor?' he wanted to know.

'Yes, sir. There's a gate on the opposite fence, but it is always closed. It leads to empty terrain and the rubbish heap and the forest.'

'So it's not guarded?'

'Sir, we had no instructions…'

'Son of a bitch,' the lieutenant swore, and turned around to retrace his steps, leaving bemused faces behind him. He wasn't at the entrance when Garrera stepped out of the house too, as frantic as the lieutenant.

'Well?' he said.

'She used the back. She's in the forest.'

'Find her, and bring her back here and keep her here, even if I'm already gone by then.'

'How did she know, sir?'

'Irrelevant. We know that she knows, so she must be stopped. I'll talk to my men along the route. Meanwhile, you give chase and keep me posted.'

And he brushed past his second to execute whatever was on his mind. Alain went back into the house with a horrified look to prepare himself.

Lady Esella knew that she would be followed. She knew her husband would send every single hound and every single man under his command after her, and the Oreum forest was small, just a bit more of a wood than a forest. Beyond it there was nothing but difficult, irregular terrain for several miles, but then using the main route was out of the question. Garrera's men obviously knew all about the scheme. They were ready to execute anyone coming between them and their master's wishes. For all Lady Esella knew, every single person Garrera could give direct command was a traitor. The entire frontier could be in on this. But she could trust her attendant. Pithadia was loyal to her like a dog. She had raised this girl as her own, having been unable to have children of her own. Pithadia was from the southwestern Korazite region of the Reideland, where the lady had been so many years ago on a tour with her husband, who had been a prince charming then, not a rotten, murderous prick. The Reideland was a Korazite strategic economic zone, being rich in sugarcane, which on its own could satisfy more than half of the Korazite economy. The land was also rich in iron metal, a much needed material on this unpredictable Moabian promontory. But Pithadia had roots from Rabier, and her family had been unable to get a foothold in the Reideland, for which native Korazites would kill. Besides, she was orphaned not long after her family moved to the Reideland.

'When we arrive near Poltar, we have to separate,' Lady Esella began by saying, 'you take another route to the city, and deliver this message to the king himself. Himself, you understand?' she gave her a letter with Garrera's seal. Pithadia just took it, but didn't stop looking as if she'd seen a ghost. Lady Esella would save her from that, 'That letter is a warning to the king. My husband has been plotting and is about to execute an attack on him. If Eton has found that I am not in the house, he has already sent men after me.' By "the king", she meant the heir, K'rar.

'Oh my God,' gasped Pithadia, whether it was in disgust of the man Garrera or in fear of the scale of this intelligence she had just heard. Twice, she looked from the letter in her hand to her master's face.

'Now you know what's at stake. You cannot make any mistakes. No detours. Do not stay in the same place too long. And use different names at every stop. If I am unable to reach the king, this is in your hands. You must not fail. I will go through Poltar. You will travel west of it and go through S'ia, and then straight ahead to the capital.'

'Ma'am, I am not sure…'

'Neither am I,' said Lady Esella quickly, 'but we have to do what we have to do. Knowing that the king's life is in danger and doing nothing is treason in itself.'

'I can't believe your husband could do this,' Pithadia said as a matter of fact.

'No? What about the strange woman who has been frequenting the manor. Did you know anything about her?'

Pithadia's heart skipped a beat. What the hell?

'Ma'am?'

Lady Esella burst into a hearty laugh. Light moments like these were not to go to waste,

'Relax, girl. I will not hold you to account for not telling me. I would have never believed you anyway.'

'Ma'am, you know your husband had an affair?'

'I know that I am not in his plans as king. That bitch is the queen-to-be, if Eton succeeds. So we are not letting him.'

'Ma'am, does your husband plan to kill you?'

'No, at least not that. But he wants to paint me as promiscuous to turn the masses against me. I heard all of it, but I couldn't care less about my future with Eton. I will not betray my country, and he knew this when he left me out of his plans and slept with that foreign whore.'

The young prince had just been told that the Queen of Shona had just crossed the border, coming from Thermos, her capital, and that the king of landlocked Rabier was also due to arrive today. To him, the attendance of these two was quorum, and his father should not be kept in the land of the living any longer than was necessary, although this was only the second day since he died. K'rar had also refused to be crowned before his father was interred, and on that note the King's Council, his council, had agreed. But these issues were less important than the pain in the ass—the architect of his father's death, the usurper. This he hadn't told the Council, they couldn't be trusted. So he and his chief guard and friend, Ashdud, were in his room, the King's room, reviewing the Finance Report of the palace personnel. A King's Council minister was employed to do this dirty work, but K'rar had insisted that they check the records themselves to spot any anomaly. They were reviewing the records for the last three months, for 202 regular personnel, and others contracted to do one-off tasks. It was the third uninterrupted hour since this exercise began, and K'rar had still not spotted an anomaly, neither had Ashdud.

'Forgive me, my lord, but this seems to be a wild goose chase,' said Ashdud, 'I mean, maybe the regular staff could have a clue, but—'

'I've got it!' K'rar exclaimed. He waved the papers in Ashdud's face, 'I know who did this. Come on, we must go now.' He rose from the chair and took a small sword—he was a student of Ashdud's in combat—as though he would actually use it.

'Where are we going Your Majesty?'

'The judge's.'

'The judge, sir?' said Ashdud. Korazin had more than one judge.

'The old one from the east. He was here on the night when father died,' he was now opening the door, and immediately being followed by 7 men, heavily armed. K'rar wasn't used to this yet. When he used to see them follow his father, he hadn't given a shit, but now he was even startled by their sudden movement.

'Judge Luuk, Your Majesty? You wager Judge Luuk did this?'

'No. But he did come with someone on Friday who did it. The old man will spit it out.'

'Sir, sir!' Ashdud impeded his boss child, 'the men will gladly go to his house and bring him.'

That was the other thing K'rar hadn't gotten used to. When he was prince he was allowed to move about this way and that, even outside the palace. He was alone in this vast palace, but outside he made friends of his own age, but who almost revered him instead. Particularly, K'rar had a close bond with one Ramona, the daughter of a piggery dealer. This one K'rar liked because she viewed him more as a friend and age contemporary than her prince, now her king. K'rar's plans to pay her a visit had still been frustrated by things like these. His duties as King kept him here. Besides, as King it wouldn't be in order if he frequented a commoner's place. So it had been arranged that after all this was finished, this girl the King so dearly loved would be welcome to the palace any time the King wished to see her.

'Can't I go?' K'rar had been through this already with Ashdud, but to win a raffle he had to buy the ticket.

'You are King, sir. You give orders, we execute them,' Ashdud said.

'When you have dogs, you don't do the barking,' K'rar quoted from his father that age-old adage.

'Exactly, Your Majesty. Orders, Your Majesty.'

'Orders?' K'rar also hated this part, yelling orders at grown men and women, 'bring him here. I will question him myself.'

Ashdud relayed these instructions to his own subordinates in the King's Guard. K'rar did not yet believe in the integrity of the usual lapdogs, the Korazin Armed Forces' Royal Forces Division even if they were highly unlikely to be compromised, seeing that Ashdud had been part of them before K'rar promoted him to King's Executor in an interim capacity.

Queen Mother Noor-shan had been keenly watching her son for the last two days, and was now smiling at him from a balcony overhead from the throne room, where the boy king was currently dealing with some kind of misdemeanor. She was standing with her cousin, who had come from the north for the burial.

'He's a bit better than his father to me,' her cousin, Rubi, was saying.

'He is,' said the queen mother, 'he is only 13 years old, but he is handling Caspar's death even better than me.'

'Well he's a child.'

'He's 13. He was closer to his father than to me. I thought it would shake him harder.'

'Well, a king is a king. His duties make him forget. Besides, you will still have your baby for 5 years during the regency. You said he thinks his father was just poisoned?'

'Yeah. If it is, I hope he avenges my husband in kind.'

'How could you say that?' Rubi was austere, 'can't you see the boy has even a bigger problem, to find the perpetrators of this heinous treason? If they managed to get to the King and poison him, then the poison is already in the highest reaches of this place.'

The queen mother had considered this, but then she wasn't the king. She was thirsty for blood. The king would deal with the corruption himself.

The king was dealing with it. In fact as his mother stood at the balcony and watched, the throne room's high doors were pushed open, and in stepped a couple of soldiers. The throne room was a large, rectangular hall, designed to accommodate slightly more than a hundred people if they were standing along the left and right walls. A large corridor would be left in the center, from the throne to the tall double doors. The two balconies overhead along the lengths were installed for spectators, such as the queen mother today, who were not part of the proceedings and couldn't interrupt unless invited, in which case they would have to descend to the throne room via a spiral staircase. K'rar's throne was a comfortable silver-and-gold throne that was way too large for him so he had to sit without leaning. This had been remedied by fitting cushions behind him against which he could lean and still have his feet on the carpet. Three high steps separated him from the rest of the room and gave him a good view of everything in the room. Two guards stood on the first one, armed with a spear and sword each. His executor stood some yards to his left with his hands behind him. Either side of him, high on the walls, the flags of the kingdom of Korazin hung, and behind him the portraits of some of the Kings of this realm.

Now the soldiers had bungled in while K'rar dealt with a problem involving two estates in dispute that had been the subject of a royal decree of his father. Korazin had a court system, but this was not in their jurisdiction. Nonetheless K'rar suspended the session when he learned the subject of the soldiers' arrival. They had arrived from the Southern border, and they carried the news that things there were unfolding, in a bad way, fast.

'Goldoran troop movement you said?' K'rar was a good military student. He understood the implications of this without further explanation.

'Yes sir. General Garrera wants to know if it is possible to deploy more troops south. He recommends General Hatto, sir.'

K'rar looked aside at Ashdud.

'General Hatto is in Sidon in the North,' said Ashdud, 'watching the waters for us.' He referred to the North Moabian Sea, a very busy sea because of its multinational trade. Shona, Korazin, Kai, Ziv, Arioch and even the Moon Province all had interests there.

'So who will watch the waters if I authorize this deployment?' K'rar wanted to know.

'We have standby forces here in Chaldea sir,' said Ashdud, 'there are men here who can successfully do it.'

'Then so be it. Send word to Hatto to travel south immediately with his garrison as soon as he receives it.'

This command was for the executor to execute, by writing down the orders and stamping it with K'rar's signet ring, the King's approval ring. It did not even fit K'rar. But Ashdud wasn't the official executor. After his father's burial, a joint ceremony would be held with his coronation to appoint three regents to govern the nation on his behalf, until he was seventeen years old. The regent who would hold the signet ring was the official executor of the king, and before stamping it, K'rar's opinion would be sought with the help of all the regents and other unofficial advisors.

'Now, soldier, what did the general say was the Goldoran motive?'

'He did not say, my lord.'

'Make sure of it before launching a countermeasure. Understand?'

'Yes sir.'

And Major Alain's plan had worked. Hatto and his force would come from the city's north and enter the city to march through it as if they were traveling south. By that time, Garrera and his own huge force as well as a mass of invading armies would have already covertly moved as close to the capital as Polyepp, which the populace coined Snake City, just a couple or so miles south of the capital Chaldea. The plotters also had two other military spearheads loyal to Garrera like wolfhounds, and these had instructions to disable the mobilization of the Crown's loyalist fighters. But all of this now hinged on Garrera's wife's movement. Everything would fall by the wayside if she got to the king first. The king would definitely believe her.

And she was proving to be an excellent ghost. Major Alain had stationed men ahead of her in Poltar and along all its exits. They were Southern Frontiersmen, so they knew her, whether by height, gait or hair. She would by no means escape them. But the Major was getting increasingly frustrated, having arrived at Poltar this morning and still having no results. There is no way she could have got here ahead of these men, he knew. She had used tough terrain, and had travelled in a carriage. And the pursuit from here couldn't be mounted by so many men without alerting the city's Constabulary Force, which was headed by a royalist.

But the Lady was in Poltar. She had managed to get in disguised as a devout worshipper, clad in tatters and traveling in a group. She knew she had no chance traveling out in the open against experienced soldiers, so she had changed course and headed here, just before alert levels had soared. She had asked her guards to hide the carriage until today evening and then drive it to Poltar and expose it. So as she expertly hid herself in a worship synagogue until one of her guards came to report a success in her own bug.

'They are dead sure now,' he was saying, 'we can go through the other exit.'

'Hopefully Pithadia will get there even before me,' she replied.

'Hopefully. Only, S'ia is far from here, and she had to come from east. We have to run now. By morning we should be there.'

They went through the north exit without detection successfully and entered the dry road, which was more or less a straight line for Chaldea. Lady Esella and the guard—the other had escorted Pithadia—galloped ahead and up the high road as the light in the sky began to darken. Ahead, the road would descend into a reclaimed swamp and a small settlement of fishermen who worked along the wide Poltar River. The river flowed just along the length of Poltar's north, all the way to its delta mouth in Vellet and Worsey. Here, one of the bloodiest battles against Goldora had been fought 300 years ago. It was a theater of war. So Lady Esella stopped here to have a good look at the swamp valley before the darkness ensued. But someone else was watching her from the valley.

'She's here sir,' one of the soldiers who had been watching keenly in this area warned Major Alain through the window of the abandoned house. He was disguised, so he wouldn't spook Lady Esella. But the 13 men cobbled up inside the one room house were fully armored and fully armed.

'Is she alone?'

'With a guard. You were right. The carriage was bait.'

The house was a bit detached from the small hamlet ahead of it, and looked like some sort of barn for the small bungalow some 200 meters away. It was the first house from the top of the hill, so the men could ambush her quickly without being seen. But she would go through at full pelt on horseback, so the lookout had to step out and stall her. He did this with a fantastic display of acting as a madman. He yelled incantations and rolled on the ground this way and that. It worked. 5 men went around the house and behind while Major Alain skulked onto the scene in front of her. She went red almost immediately. One look behind her, and another look at Alain, who was wearing a sardonic, wry sneer.

'I must admit, you almost got us,' he said, his hands by his waist.

Lady Esella was flushing gradually with indignation.

'A goose chase, and you decide to travel with one guard, eh?' another soldier taunted.

'If you're going to kill me, don't beat around the bush. Get it done with.'

Her guard immediately drew his sword in response to these words. Major Alain was ironically chuckling and shaking his head,

'Why would I do such a thing?' he coughed, 'I'm simply here to add to your security. The king will be very interested to hear that a married woman eloped with a frontiersman. The wife of the most decorated military officer. Of course the king will want to observe his General's calls to punish you and your male whore.' One of his goons stepped forward and waved the documents of divorce in her face. The name of the guard she was moving with was on the document. This was an official complaint to the court and the king to divorce his wife, something which was not available for wives. Lady Esella had not seen this coming.

'What the hell is this? Eton is willing to go this far?'

'Did you not know already? You heard him didn't you?'

'You won't get away with this.'

'Take her!'

The men were gentle on her, but not on her companion. He was hostile, so they had to beat him into submission and bind him in cattle ropes. As tradition, they also stripped Lady Esella of her outer garments, took her shoes, and left her in her white linen undergarment. They would parade her and the man in a walk of shame once they came to the city. Lady Esella couldn't remember the last time she shed a tear. Today, even though she had some recourse in Pithadia's mission, she did shed more than one tear. The Major would not come with them. He was needed south to help in mobilizing. Only eight men were required, and these left for Poltar first to pick transportation before riding north in the dark.

Garrera was on pins and needles as he paced this way and that in the shack at Vixen's Creek. His fingers were constantly ruffling his moustache, and gritted teeth helped him concentrate on his racing thoughts. He had abandoned his trip north to implore the boy to invite the king of Goldora to the funeral, sensing a red line too many with that move, what with the high risk of his wife. There were two men with him as before, but this time, those he liked better. One of them was his Goldoran opposite number, General Kaputska, whom Garrera knew not only as a military man but also personally. In one of the very few incidents of smooth relations between their two great nations, they had met for the first time, and they had warmed up to each other, being very similar in characteristics. The men watched silently as Garrera struggled with the dilemma of his wife, until the opposite number couldn't wait any longer.

'Perhaps we ought to launch the offensive early,' he said, 'being revealed is inevitable.'

'No, it is not,' Garrera concurred, 'but the time it happens could mean the difference between our success and failure. If Alain hasn't caught her, and she reveals my hand to the boy, it means that Hatto will be compromised before reaching the capital. That gives the boy enough time to reorganize himself, even to enlist help from Shona, whose monarch is probably already here.'

'And we lose the surprise,' said the other man.

'That's right. Everything hinges on Alain. Although we can't just sit back now and wait. If by morning there's no intelligence, move the first wave,' he said this to Kaputska.

'Absolutely. I can rein in more troops from King Tao, too. In case the worst happens.'

'Tao will abandon the project if the hands involved are too many,' said the other man. He was the closest to Tao of the three, and it was because of this that he was here, 'if not, he will simply not commit more forces to fight the whole of Moab, especially if Shona gets involved.' This was not because Shona was capable of mounting an all-out war against Goldora, but because her involvement would certainly incite the entire west to suffocate Goldoran interests in the South Tamarind Sea and the strait of Terror, which Goldora could not counter, for all its military might. Its forces were massively ground infantrymen, as with the rest of the continent, but a combined sea effort by Ziv and Tamar and Shona would cripple Tao's economy. Garrera needed a new contingency. Quickly.

But his men had been successful. By morning they were already in Chaldea, cocooned up in an inn near the south gate, but they were unable to start Lady Esella's "infidelity march" to the palace where the king would settle the matter. This was normally the court's problem, but important officials like Garrera had a straight line to the king so as to avoid protracted court process. But the men could neither march her to the palace nor detain her at the Constabulary posts in the city. Today was King Caspar von Balian's burial date, and everything was at a standstill. The entire Constabulary Force in Chaldea, but for a few on-duty officers to ensure order, was to assemble at the Aldley Cemetery for the burial. This would last most of the day, and it was still not in order for the men to visit the King right after the funeral. Nonetheless, this wasn't dangerous to them. The main motive was to keep her away from the palace and from the king, not to march her through the streets. Their master General Garrera would get the intelligence of their success and launch his attack on the Crown.

The Aldley Cemetery was the burial place of the Kings of Korazin. It had been for hundreds of years since the reign of Stuhr-Ellegaard I, the 11th king of Korazin. Aldley was a detachment from the massive monastery of the same name, and stood in a valley off the boulder on which that monastery sat. Aldley was just east of Chaldea's wall. It was a beautiful place despite its deathly purpose. It was one of the most popular cultural sites not only in Korazin but in all of Moab, and it was for this reason that there would have been no problem inviting the king of Goldora to honor the burial. The cemetery was a fenced acre of earth, designed with firs along the black-painted iron fence. Mourners who couldn't find space in the cemetery grounds lined up in long files along the fence to watch the proceedings through the spaces. Old Caspar was to be interred next to his own father, who had died 43 years ago at 88 years of age. King Caspar had ascended the throne at 28, K'rar was thinking, when he was old enough to make heavy decisions, and having lighter problems to deal with. Now at just 13, K'rar had the monarchy on his shoulders, and the first problem he was facing was his seat's longevity, compromised by whoever had poisoned his father. The second problem was even greater. The Southern enemies were using this moment of crisis and taking advantage of his age to plan an attack on the sovereign Kingdom of Korazin. K'rar felt that should be the last person in the land who should have the responsibility to deal with this. But he had help. He had Ashdud. He had mom. Besides, in a few days' time the regents would be appointed. This would have been his first activity as a young king, but he, following Queen Noor-shan's advice, had decided that sending off his father to the world of the dead should be done first.

The burial process was very long and tiring. By midafternoon, the cemetery's population was increasing not scattering away. And K'rar was in the middle of it. K'rar had no problem with the singing and the dirges and the revelers placing bunches on the King's coffin. But he was not very religious, and he was supremely disinterested in the religious part of the funeral. There were three deities in Moab, including Dagon, Ashtoreth and Ekron. Each nation glorified all three, but it was not uncommon for a nation to glorify or to love one of them more than the others. The god Ashtoreth was the Korazite god, or goddess, ahead of Ekron and Dagon, so Ashtoreth priests overtook the religious aspect of the funeral, giving little or no time for the others. The magnificent monastery was an Ashtoreth friar monastery, and the Father Friar, an octogenarian man, was leading the prayers today. About 70 subordinate priests, dressed in all purple, were there too. Ekron and Dagon priests were in small numbers, and these freely mingled with the Ashtoreth zealots, blotting the uniform purple with white and red. K'rar and the other monarchs and the other important guests were sitting in their designated tent just at the foot of the giant boulder on which the monastery sat. He was more interested in chitchatting with Helga, the princess and heir apparent of Shona. Moab was now accustomed to Shona being led by a queen. Four of the last six Hone monarchs were queens, including Rukh-shana, Helga's mother. Helga would become the fifth after her mother. Only the Moon Province had ever had a queen in its succession apart from Shona.

'You will be king for many years before I become queen,' Helga was saying.

K'rar knew that his kingship was in serious jeopardy, but he concurred,

'Yeah. I don't like it though. Gets you old quickly. So you better pray that your mother lives a long life.'

'Like you know so much in your first week,' said Helga.

'I assure you, I do.'

After a brief silence the girl said,

'You know, if I hadn't been the heir of the Hone throne, our parents would have been preparing for our marriage already.'

K'rar was startled by this,

'Why would they?'

'Highborns marry highborns, K'rar.'

K'rar knew this. In fact, his mother had Kai roots, being part of that island's royal family. But he had no idea that the courting began several years early. He was also not very conservative, and had never thought of a princess from a foreign land. But Helga obviously had.

'Well, which second-born prince will you marry?' he asked her.

'I don't know any. You would have been my future husband, if one of us was not an heir.'

'Hmm you've been thinking about me, eh?' he teased.

'Well, don't you think we would be a good match?'

K'rar could answer this. He had met this girl twice before on royal visits to Shona, where they both got along.

'Yeah, yeah. We are a good match.'

'Then you should have been thinking of me back,' she said.

'Why, if we won't be—'

'We will be monarchs. Korazin and Shona will become the greatest of allies then.'

K'rar could live with that. K'rar liked that.