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Hrathen watches "Raoden" stride into the throne room from a careful distance. No one in the room is challenging the impostor's claim; this man — whoever he actually is — will shortly be king of Arelon. Sarene's response to Telrii's death has been a brilliant counter, and Hrathen's plans are in serious danger. What unsettles him most is not the manoeuvre but the look on the princess's face. He can see the affection there. Could a Sarene he had judged so discerning really have given her heart to a man this fast?

His own irritation at the question annoys him. There is no reason for him to be jealous; his relationship with the princess has been one of antagonism throughout. He pulls himself back to the political problem. One month is left until united Shu-Dereth's armies wash west over Arelon and kill its people, the princess included. He needs every hour of it. He withdraws toward the back of the chamber; a king's first decree is often the incarceration of his enemies, and he does not want his red armour catching the new king's eye on the dais.

He is still close enough to witness the change. He had assumed the Shaod arrives suddenly, but not *that* suddenly; the speed of it forces him to revise his assumptions. He himself once feigned an Elantrian face with a chemical mask; what if "Raoden" never died at all, but was simply hidden in Elantris all this time? It is worse than the disguise. And worse still: the Arelene nobility does *nothing*. Sarene gives her speech; they stand dull-eyed; they let the Elantrian be crowned anyway.

He feels physically ill at it. Turning to leave he sees Dilaf slipping away from the back of the crowd at the same moment and falls in behind him. For once he shares the arteth's disgust. And at the same moment he sees his own mistake: Dilaf had been right. If he himself had built the campaign in Arelon on hatred of Elantris instead of charm, the people would never have stomached an Elantrian on the throne. He used popularity where he should have used doctrine, and a congregation built that shallow flips back at the first push. Three months were never going to be enough time to build a stable following; he had known it from the start, and the deadline had forced him to skip the deeper work anyway.

Dilaf does not lead him back toward the chapel. The arteth turns down a side street that runs toward the center of the city, and Hrathen — curiosity overtaking brooding — adjusts his pace so the clink of armoured boots will not give him away. He need not have worried; Dilaf walks with a single-minded purpose and never looks back.

Dusk has nearly drained out of the sky by the time the priest enters the great square of the Arelene Market. Hrathen loses him among the half-lit tents and stops in the open, looking around at the quiet canvas. Then a hundred torches catch around him all at once.

He stumbles back. Men step out from the tents on every side. Bare-backed, arms like knotted tree branches, skin drawn taut over raised ridges of bone arranged in patterns he knows from his own training to recognize. Memories howl in his ears in the silent square. The merchants who had come to the spring market in such surprising numbers and stayed through every reason a merchant would have to leave had not been merchants at all. The wares had been a ruse. They were warriors. Wyrn has sent the monks of Dakhor. The invasion of Arelon is beginning a month early.