Varthlokkur spun. His response so startled the King, he nearly flung himself backward off the wall. Varthlokkur seized one flailing hand. "Don't sneak around like that."

"Like what? Who was sneaking? I walked up and sat down. What the hell is wrong with you?"

The wizard grumbled, "Nothing concrete. Not yet. Something in the east. Without the stink of Shinsan. But I could be wrong."

"Any tie-in with Hsung's change of heart?"

"The world consists of patterns. Mostly, we misread them. In Hsung's case, though, he really wants peace. The question is why."

"You didn't say that before."

"Nepanthe."

"Think I missed something there."

"The years have robbed her of too much. Her brothers. Mocker and Ethrian. Even Elana. I don't want to crucify her on a false hope."

"You're not making a lot of sense."

"It's Ethrian. He might be alive."

"What? Where?" This was staggering news. His godson alive? He owed that boy an incalculable debt.

"Easy," the wizard said. "I don't know anything for sure. It's a touch of a feeling I get lately. Something one hell of a long way off that has his aura. It's like catching one sniff of fresh bread while you're walking down the street, then trying to find the baker. The only resource I haven't tried is the Unborn. I won't unless there's another overpowering excuse to send him that way anyway."

The King sneered his disgust. The thing called the Unborn was a monster which should never have been created. "He's in the east, then."

"If it's him. The far east."

"Prisoner of Shinsan?"

"Lord Chin took him."

"Chin is dead."

"Just thinking out loud. Lord Chin and the Fadema took him. We've assumed they delivered him to the Pracchia, who used him to twist Mocker's arm. But maybe they didn't have him after all."

"They had him. You couldn't bluff Mocker. You ought to know that. They did some fancy convincing to make him attack me."