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ruling—he’d never married his lifebonded. So when it became evident that Randale was desperately ill, and that the Companions “inexplicably” were not going to Choose Jisa, Randale’s collateral lines had been searched for a suitable candidate.
    Treven was the only possible choice at that point; he’d been Chosen two years ago, he was a Mindspeaker as powerful as Vanyel. He understood the principles of governing—at least so far as they applied to his own parents’ Border-barony, since he’d been acting as his father’s righthand man since he was nine.
    Jisa had loved him from the moment he’d crossed the threshold of the Palace. It wasn’t obligatory for the King’s Own to be in love with her monarch, but Vanyel was of the opinion that it helped....
    Except that it makes things awfully complicated.
    :She’s not a child anymore,: Yfandes reminded him. At that point he really looked at her, and saw the body of a young woman defining the shape of what had been shapeless before this year.
    :Let’s not borrow trouble before we have to,: he thought back at his Companion, avoiding the topic.
    Jisa looked back at him with those too-old, too-wise eyes. : Trev’s waiting for me; he sent me to you. Sometimes he knows what I need before I do.:
    He released her, and stepped back a pace. :Think you still need me?:
    She shook her head, and pulled her hair back over her shoulders. :No, I think I’ll be all right, now. I don’t know how you do it, Father—how you manage to be so strong for all of us. I’ll go back in now, but if you need me for anything—:
    He shook his head, and she smiled weakly, then turned and threaded her way across the overgrown flowerbeds, taking the most direct route back, the route he had avoided.
    Soaking her shoes. And not caring in the least.
    :Like father, like daughter,: Yfandes snorted.
    :Shut up, horse,: Van retorted absently.
    His own thoughts followed his daughter. It’s a lifebonding, the thing between her and Trev. I’m positive. The way she’s always aware of him, and Trev of her ... in a way that’s not a bad thing. She’s going to need all the emotional help she can get when Randi dies, and she surely won’t get it from Shavri. Shavri is going to be in too much pain herself to help Jisa—assuming Shavri lives a candlemark beyond Randi....
    But the problems ... gods above and below! Is she old enough to understand what Trev is going to have to do—that the good of Valdemar may—will—take precedence over her happiness? How can any fifteen-year-old understand that? Especially with her heart and soul so bound up with his?
    But—she was old enough to understand about me....
    How well Vanyel remembered....

    .... the provisions of the exclusion to be as follows....
    â€œUncle Van?”
    Vanyel had looked up from the proposed new treaty with Hardorn. He had the odd feeling that there was something hidden in the numerous clauses and subclauses, something that could cause a lot of trouble for Valdemar. He wasn’t the only one—the Seneschal was uneasy, and so were any Heralds with the Gift of ForeSight that so much as entered the same room with it.
    So he’d been burning candles long into the night, searching for the catch, trying to ferret out the problem and amend it before premonition became reality.
    He’d taken the infernal thing back to his own room where he could study it in peace. It was past the hour when even the most pleasure-loving courtier had sought his or her bed; it was long past the hour when Jisa should have been in hers. Yet there she stood, wrapped in a robe three sizes too big for her, half-in, half-out of his doorway.
    â€œJisa?” he’d said, blinking at her, as he tried to pull his thoughts out of the maze of “whereases” and “party of the first parts.” “Jisa, what are you doing still