Instead, Ilsabet had gone to Lord Jorani's chambers in the highest room in the castle tower. Nimbus Castle had been built on a narrow peninsula that stretched nearly to the center of the slow-moving Arvid River. The river's source was a hot spring in the mountains, the water always warm. Except for the hottest summer months, a fog usually hung around the castle, making it seem as if the thick stone walls rose from the mists themselves. The night fog was denser than usual, leaving Ilsabet alone above a world of faded colors and muted sounds.

It seemed that if she concentrated she could see the signal fires of her father's camp, could even hear the cries of the soldiers as they rode into battle, the screams of the rebels cut down by the soldiers' arrows, swords, and lances, or captured and beheaded on the battlefield, dying as rebellious subjects should die.

In the few hours she'd slept that night, she had dreamt of her father, Baron Janosk Obour, and how their life had been when there was peace in the land. Then he had ruled over the loose confederation of nobles with the same benevolence as his father and grandfather before him. All that changed in the course of a single year.

Her mother finally died of the same wasting sickness that seemed to affect Ilsabet herself. In the midst of the baron's mourning, the far northwestern provinces of Deneri and Kapem pulled out of the confederation. This was their right, but they also laid claim to the gold-rich region of Tygelt. If Nimbus Castle and the nearby town of Pirie were the heart of Kislova, Tygelt was its purse. With no choice, the nobles of southern Kislova declared war.

So the long, bloody feud had begun, ending finally three years later with the executions of a dozen defeated nobles, the annexation of their provinces, the marriage of state between Baron Janosk and Lady Lorena of Deneri, and the near bankruptcy of all Kislova.