Hearing the news of Starlex's return and subsequent imprisonment, Tylla rode Sola, the frisky white mare, to Oran Palace accompanied by Davar, her groom.

While serving women bowed before her, Tylla strode into the palace with the riding crop dangling from her wrist, ran up the palace stairs two at a time, and crashed open the doors to the king's war chamber.

"Tylla," said Scipio Davadas, standing up from behind the oval table where he and his henchmen were conferring. "What are you doing here? Can't you see I am busy?"

"I don't care, father," Tylla said. "I demand you free Starlex immediately along with the Skaard men who saved her."

Dolceto Davadas gave his daughter-in-law a stern look and said, "This behavior is outrageous!"

Tylla pointed at the large round table spread with maps and goblets of wine. "I'm outrageous? What about you? While you fools are in here smoking your pipes and talking of war, my mother is waging a war against her own sister!”

"That's enough!" shouted Scipio Davadas.

The harshness of her father's tone silenced her.

"I apologize for my daughter's intrusion, gentlemen." Scipio's dark eyes scanned his men's disapproving faces. "New brides are nervous, especially when their husbands are at war and not at home to keep them company. Come, daughter."

As Scipio grabbed Tylla by the arm and marched her to the door, Dolceto muttered, "A man who can"t control his own family has no business running..."

"You little fool," hissed Scipio as he roughly pulled Tylla into the hall. Tightening his grip on her arm until it burned, he said, "I should throw you in the dungeon along with Bonn Skaard for such disobedience.”

Tylla dropped her head. She could never hold her own in the face of her father's anger. "I'm sorry," she whined, "But what's happening to Starlex and Bonn Skaard is not fair."

"What's happening to my men in Crytombe Crags is not fair! We've been fighting the Nazeers for months and still cannot drive them back. Our enemy is determined to take Mynimium. And yet, you don't inquire about your husband fighting on the front lines. You don't even ask if he's alive or dead. Do you even care?"

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Tylla raised her dark eyes to meet his. "No. I don't care."

Scipio's upper lip curled in disgust. "You shame me, daughter."

He reentered the war chamber, leaving Tylla alone and fuming in the marble hallway.

Gam Nazeer came running toward Tylla with her apron flying, her face red and damp.

"I must see the king at once," Gam said, her breath a whistle through her toothless gums. In her hand, she held a scroll sealed with the Illyminum crest.

"What is it?" Tylla demanded.

"A messenger just rode in from the country to announce the Queen has had a son! Let the bells ring out in all of Oran!" Gam battered her fists against the war chamber door. "Your Grace! Your Grace!"

The door shot open and Scipio's angry face appeared in the crack. "What is it now?"

Gam fell to the floor before him. "A son, your Grace! A son!"

Wordlessly, Tylla picked up the scroll old Gam had dropped in her excitement and handed it to her father. Scipio Davadas ripped through the seal. The expression on his face shifted from anger to pure joy.

He turned to Tylla. "Ride out at once to Roselynn's house and stay with your mother. Bring a nurse with you." When Tylla hesitated, he shouted, "Go! Make yourself useful for once."

To old Gam, still lying prostrate at his feet, he said, "Go to Oran tower and inform Flenn Illyminum of the news."

Scipio's grin widened as he opened the door to the war chamber, calling to his henchmen, "Let all of Ardelym know that today Illym's prophecy is fulfilled. The next great Davadas King was born today!"

* * *

Tylla rode out on Sola to the sound of bells ringing from the tower and the citizens of Oran rushing to hear the news. When she reached the bluff beyond the Pale Forest, she brought Sola to a halt and looked back at her city, now alive with celebration. She reflected sadly how she was no longer the esteemed daughter of the King. She had been replaced.

And after making a spectacle out of myself today, I will never be in my father's favor again.

She took her pain out on Sola, digging her heels into the horse's ribs. The white mare reared and shot forward along the high bluff, leaving Davar and the nurse riding behind her in the dust.

* * *

Tylla arrived at her aunt's country home before nightfall, and found her mother in bed, gazing down at her newborn brother. When Tylla inquired about her aunt's whereabouts, Hyperia rolled her eyes to the Heavens and informed her that Roselynn had run off with her Illymium lover. They were living somewhere on Terragonian Bluff.

Yewen Illyminum was half a league away in Alcora Forest, shoveling the last heap of dirt into the grave he had spent all day digging. In it, lay the body of Roselynn Davadas.

Yewen had seen bodies bleeding in the streets and fires burning in the ivory towers during the siege of Mynimium, but he’d never seen anything as horrific as the fire in the Queen's eyes when she, growing impatient with the slow progress of the birth, had straddled the screaming Roselynn in her bed, and used her sharpened stiletto to cut the baby from his mother's womb.