The summons arrived before the hour did.
A guard burst into the guest hut without knocking, young, winded, terrified, and he delivered the message standing at rigid attention because the alternative was collapsing.
"Prince Faelor... His Highness has heard of the princess's return. He summons the... his words are, the traitor and her pets... to appear before the queen's court. Now. In the deep halls."
The spiral throne-court of the world tree was a cathedral grown rather than built, its vaults living branches, its light falling in green columns from the canopy far above, and it was packed. Every faction had come. Merchant lords in trade amber. Tower students in their robes, Lealdo's own council seated in a block. The loyalists stood apart and silent, near the empty throne of woven blossoms that stood behind the prince's chair like an open wound in the room.
