They’d had to get Caden as far away from the capital as possible while Asil rooted out the traitors inside the palace.

When he and Asil had rolled out the map of the empire those many months ago to choose a location to hide Caden, Erys had seemed like the perfect spot. A tiny speck of an island at the edge of the known world, steeped in stories of strange magic and inhabited by a people who could hardly be considered civilized. No one on Erys had ever set eyes on the prince, including his very distant cousin, Consul Serat Terzi. Caden would hide in plain sight as a common soldier in Janek’s entourage. The prince would spend a few months guarding a pile of rocks in a relatively secure outpost and perhaps learn some humility and respect for the people who served him.

But Erys wasn’t nearly as peaceful as it had appeared on a map. Serat was bored, ambitious and uncomfortably inquisitive. The rebellion here was coalescing into something that could become dangerous if poorly managed. The Order had arrived to conduct a Reaping, which would only pour oil on that flame. And Janek was too far from the capital to help Asil if needed.

He should be at the capital, not out here in the middle of nowhere tending to a child.

Several yards ahead of him, the prince wove down the lane like a boy who couldn’t hold his liquor. At the corner, he passed through the open doors of a tavern. A burst of laughter echoed down the lane before the sound was cut off by the closing of the heavy wooden door. Rather than follow Caden inside, Janek made his way down an alley into the courtyard behind the building. He waited there with his back to the wall of the stables.

The night cooled as the sun completed its long slide into the sea. Bats flit about overhead, and the horses settled themselves in their stalls.

Caden would be out any moment. It was dangerous for the prince to have summoned him like this. It had to be important. Perhaps one of the mages had recognized him.

No.

Asil had been very careful to keep his children away from the mages. The fortress where Caden and Mari had been reared was high in the mountains of Pinalt. Asil had handpicked all of the servants. The guards were soldiers who would lay down their lives before allowing a mage to set foot on the drawbridge. Janek had seen to the other less obvious defenses. It was unlikely that anyone would recognize the prince from his one public appearance at three years old when Asil had presented his heir to the court. It was possible that Caden, as a minor member of Janek’s staff, had gotten himself into some kind of trouble he couldn’t get himself out of.

While he waited in the gloom, he cast his senses into the nexus, searching for anyone who might have followed him from the Keep. Around him, the physical world dimmed. He could still see the rough outline of stone houses and fences, but they were like shadows, lacking in substance. In contrast, living things became sharply visible, aglow with bound power.

Everything alive was visible in the nexus, from the people gathered in the tavern, to the animals in the barn, to the radishes in the garden. A cat chased a rat in the alley behind him. A mother rocked her infant beside the hearth in the house across the lane. For a time, Janek simply watched the men, women and children of Shadow Point go about their evening activities.

He found nothing to concern him, but let his vision linger on the spirit plane. In the nexus, the village was adrift with aether.