“Ugly? That’s ugly?” Dethan asked incredulously, cocking a thumb in the direction the coach had disappeared in. “She’s nearly as beautiful as Kitari. And I do not make that case lightly, for I’ve seen Kitari with my own eyes!”

He regretted it the minute Tonkin looked at him as though he’d grown boils all over his face. After all, what manner of man claimed to have seen the unattainable queen of the gods? But then Tonkin’s face relaxed and he chuckled.

“Oh aye, she is a beauty at that. I agree with you. But ’round here that burn makes her ugly to most. Some said she will be unfit to rule after her father’s death … no doubt some like the jenden himself. Jenden Grannish wouldn’t be marrying her, you could wager, if he could think of any other way of becoming grand for himself. As it is the grand’s children have been cast a sad eye by Hella. Misfortunes have fallen on the royal family in terrible ways. The grand’s sons dying like that. And his two youngest daughters taken by the plague just this past summer. That leaves only the grandina Selinda and grandino Drakin. But the boy prince is only two and of poor health.” Dethan’s companion tsked his tongue and shook his head gravely.

As though to say that was the whole of it and there was nothing to be done about it. But surely anyone could see that there was something dark at play in the grand’s household. Of course, Fate was as capricious a goddess as any and Hella had been known to toy with entire families, entire bloodlines, especially if she felt slighted in some way. It was hard to say what moved Fate and why her whims fluctuated so wildly. There were those who said Hella had gone mad, her mind crazed by the many things she could see and feel unfolding in the world. From all the choices she had to make every day that could save a person or bring about their demise or worse.

But fate could be changed or altered under the right conditions. One just needed to know all the elements at play.