The guard at the city walls did not challenge them as they rode through, though he gave Saul—with his very unxornian blond hair and narrow features—a strange look. The soldiers at the castle gate were more diligent, and they read Captain Jerryl’s letter carefully before nodding the companions through.

The three raptors were taken by grooms to the raptor stable, and Saul and his friends were quickly met by a familiar face.

“Well, Sergeant Dryan!” Saul said as cordially as he could, as he saw the sergeant who had been sent with the fleeing villagers before the assault on the village. “It’s good to see you again.”

Saul extended a hand, and Dryan shook it weakly.

“It’s Lord Dryan now, actually,” he said, his smile never reaching his eyes. “Her Majesty the Queen promoted me to her council of advisors shortly after I arrived here. Word has been sent to the Queen of your arrival. I’m to take you to her audience chamber immediately.”

Dryan spoke in a quiet, toneless voice, quite without expression. His fixed smile stayed on his face, but his hooded, wary eyes did not meet Saul’s gaze.

Dryan had put on weight, and the look of hooded cunning had not been there before. He’d been sent with messages for the queen and asked to stay at the castle. Ostensibly, he’d been tasked with this role so that the village of Harkin’s Holdfast would have an ally at the Queen’s Court.

In reality, Saul knew that Sergeant Dryan had become a liability at the garrison, and Captain Jerryl, seeing this, had given him the task of staying at the castle to keep his negative influence away from the Harkin’s Holdfast soldiers.

Dryan had shed his soldier’s gear along with his old title. Instead of infantry armor, he was dressed in a rich robe of dark red fabric that shimmered when he moved. His boots were soft leather. A gold ring set with a glinting red gem gleamed on his left hand.

Saul felt the pull of unease in his connection to his two companions. Reflexively, he sent a shiver of reassurance back along the connection to them. He was not sure if they were aware of it, but he felt them calm.

Dryan had not greeted either Saul or Zorea, nor had he asked about the progress of Harkin’s Holdfast since the victory.

Clearly, his priorities now lay elsewhere.

Saul and his companions followed Dryan through the maze of the castle’s interior, through enclosed corridors and wide-open courtyards, up stairs and through wide, echoing hallways, until they reached a big square building in a huge central courtyard high above the city. The sun beat down on the courtyard.

The building was of the same black stone as the rest of the castle. This was the audience chamber.

There were two double doors that stood open at the front. Though guards in livery stood at each side of the doors, there was a steady stream of people moving in and out unhindered.

There were people in soldiers’ gear, but also many in well-made robes much like Dryan’s, or in the humbler clothes of servants. Most of these people were human, Xornians mainly, but several had strange features.

One had the pale blue skin and bright violet eyes of Styllin, the land of snow and ice in the far north. There were some of the tall, thin and darker skin of the lands of El-Alun, over the sea to the west. More than a few had the fair coloring typical of the people of the Coastal Cities and the Riverlands.

But within this, there were faces even stranger to Saul. Most prevalent were the Rattan.

Small, perhaps a little over three feet in height, the Rattan stood upright and with careful, clever, long-fingered hands. Their faces were those of rats, with bright, dark, intelligent eyes, sensitive whiskers, and gleaming, soft, fine fur.

They wore Xornian livery and fine silks, and many carried scrolls or scroll-cases with them. They walked on their hind legs, a little clumsily but with surprising speed.

Saul looked up suddenly, hearing a loud buzzing noise. A bright-colored giant dragonfly whizzed out through the doors, a scroll clutched in its front legs. The huge insect was as big as a raven, and its strange, inhuman face had a distinct sense of purpose and intelligence to it.

Saul glanced at his friends. Zorea was smiling at him, but Brand’s face was shining with wonder at the busy scene and all the strange creatures.

Dryan led the three friends on without a pause, sweeping ahead in his elegant robes. They entered the hall, moving abruptly from bright heat to the cool dimness of the stone hall.

They found themselves in a wide chamber lit by a series of tall windows on either side. A long, red carpet led from the door to a raised dais on which, in an elaborately carved throne of gleaming white wood, sat the Queen of Xorn.

Queen Lylandra was an impressive figure. Power showed in her austere, wise face, her quick eyes, and her firm, resolute jaw. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly from her brow and decorated only with a simple silver circlet with a golden eight-pointed star on the front.

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Her robes were obviously the best that money could buy, but she had used her purchasing power to get the best cut and the best cloth, while keeping the design minimal. The robe was elegant, but there was nothing decorative or frivolous. The lines plunged from shoulder to ankle in a fine display of the subtlety of the milliner’s art.

Queen Lylandra looked dressed for a day in her audience chamber, but Saul had no doubt she would be able to fight with sword or halberd without stopping to change her dress.

Not true of some kings I’ve known, Saul thought.

Despite radiating power and experience, Queen of Xorn had the look of a ruler with a whole kingdom of worries on her plate. To her right, there was her daughter.

Princess Aleia looked about eighteen and seemed both uncomfortable and bored with the necessity to serve her duty here in the audience chamber. She had a dark, troubled expression, and she held back from moving or speaking, as if she did not want to be seen at all.

In the rest of the hall, around the steps up to the dais that held the throne, an array of other courtiers and hangers-on were gathered. Saul ran his eyes over them quickly. Two of them stood out.

A tall, thin man with blue skin, gleaming bald head, and lilac eyes that glowed in the dim light. Next to him, was a portly, jovial-looking fellow whose smile and expansive air did not quite compensate for the quick, calculating glances he kept shooting out at his fellow courtiers.

These two seemed to hold positions of importance, and by their clothing and their air of superiority, Saul felt sure that they were wealthy individuals and senior courtiers of some kind.

The rest of the people around the queen appeared to be servants or lesser advisors- Well-dressed Rattan message runners also waited nearby in case they were needed.

Zorea seemed entranced by the jovial-looking man. The man glanced keenly at her. Despite his smile, Saul saw something distinctly unfriendly in that look.

There were several younger people—both men and women—in the gear of the Raptor Riders, and several scribes gathered off to one side of the dais. These scribes seemed mostly to be children of thirteen or fourteen years old, training under the tutelage of an old, gray-bearded master. Saul remembered that Queen Lylandra had emphasized education and literacy as part of her rule.

Having apprentice scribes clearly visible to all who attended her, under her own eye, as it were, must be a part of that. She wanted a symbol of education and literacy near her, and what better symbol of that could there be than a team of apprentice scribes learning their trade by her very throne.

Saul smiled, admiring the queen’s competence in wielding visual symbols to maintain her power, and also admiring the sense of informality in the chamber. No one doubted who was the queen, but there was no sense of stuffiness or ritual to the chamber.

This was a place of business, where the work of the court was ongoing. People were respectful, but they were all busy and working. Queen Lylandra enjoyed seeing her people at work.

As he strode up the red carpet toward the Queen of Xorn, Saul ran everything he knew about her through his mind.

She had been on the throne for around two decades, had married, but the husband had died young. She had one daughter, Aleia, the awkward princess who stood silent and still beside her mother’s throne.

The queen had resisted marrying again after her husband’s death and had set out a clear line of succession that would hold if she and her daughter were killed. She had reformed the military, bringing in younger men to be the officers, while keeping the complacent generals of the old power structure in place in formal roles without real responsibility.

She had done well. But despite all her precautions, she was due to be massacred in this very throne room within a few years.

The longer Saul studied the hooded eyes and the quick, darting looks of the two strange courtiers, and even the guarded faces of the soldiers and the lesser nobles and courtiers, the more certain he became that saving Harkin’s Holdfast alone would not be enough to stem that encroaching tide of fate.

There was a great deal of schemery bubbling under the surface here.

Damn, but I hate politics, Saul thought, and on the spot promised himself to steer clear of all court intrigues.

I’ll talk to the Queen, and if I can stop the Borderlands Rebellion without letting on who I am, then I’ll do that, but I’m not going to be a courtier.

Once Dryan had finished introducing Saul in florid but clumsy words, he took his position slightly below the blue-skinned man and the portly, jovial-looking fellow. Though they all bowed deferentially to each other, Dryan obviously scurried for the approval of the other two.

Saul looked away, trying not to let his disgust at their obsequiousness show on his face. He really, really hated politics.

The Queen greeted them courteously.

“I have heard of your abilities,” she said carefully. “I have a mind to grant you a title and land holdings, and to ask you to take service and perform a task for me. I understand that you are not Xornian, but that your companions are. Will you agree to serve me for a while?”

“It would please me to do so,” Saul said, wondering what she was about to offer him.

“Then,” she said, “I would offer you the title Thane of Jillin. Jillin is a small town near the Queensbridge, the main crossing from the Riverlands into my realm. The former Thane has grown unexpectedly ill, and desires to pass the role on to someone else as it does not seem likely that he will live long.

“I will not hide from you that Jillin is a small town that has fallen on hard times. I would ask that you take over the administration of the town and see what you can do to regenerate its prosperity. Lord Dryan has advised that you are a man with creativity and leadership, well suited to the task. Would you be willing to do this?”

Jillin, Saul thought, his memory working rapidly. Jillin is the town where the rebellion starts. The Thane there was one of the leaders of the rebellion. But he’s fallen ill? That’s different from my former timeline. And she said that Dryan has recommended me for the role…

He glanced up at Dryan and the two other courtiers.

A sly smile lingered on Dryan’s face as he looked at Saul. Did Dryan have some hand in the “sudden illness” of the Thane. Poison?

That is an unintended consequence, Saul thought. My actions have caused Dryan to come here, and he’s been drawn into a plot to poison the Thane of Jillin and send me there in his place.

Well, this was exactly what Saul had been looking for; a way to influence the Borderlands, a position of power from which he could forestall the development of the Borderland rebellion and stop the Xornian civil war and the wider Keldorian Faction War that followed it.

He was troubled by the significant change in timeline, but he needed to take this opportunity regardless. He made his decision.

“Very well,” he said. “I accept.”