CHAPTER 1The Prince
What were his first things? His name was Evnos Rae Karavasha, and he was the fifty-seventh Prince of the isle of Iankoros, descended in unbroken line from the second son of the first king the world ever knew. The sons of the first son had ruled on the Amyrthelian mainland and were called Kings. They had perished long ago. The sons of the second held the island and flourished. They were the Princes.
Evnos was born on a dark October day, in a room hung with red cloth, and his mother died in the birthing. Rannon, the Lord of Death, took her. When the boy was three years old, again in October, Rannon took his father also, and Evnos was Prince over Iankoros. On that day they brought him, shivering and uneasy, out into the drizzling rain, and he stood in the courtyard of th
