Chapter One

The sound of horns playing the King’s fanfare cut through the babble of conversation in the theater, sending a thrill through Prince Connor Shaltar’s nerves as he stood up with everyone else and turned toward the royal box.

The King and Queen entered the flag-draped box, and everyone bowed, including Connor. Behind the royal pair, two other figures entered: Princess Teressa and her friend Wren. They were quite a contrast—the short, round, brown-skinned magic prentice, her wild, thick mat of yellow-striped brown hair tamed into two braids that Connor knew would be bristling by the end of the play, even if Wren sat quite still. Next to her the princess was tall, her chin strong like her father’s, but its line softened with her mother’s fine features, her dark brown hair shining and neat.

The girls were whispering, but Connor saw Wren’s eager eyes taking in every detail of the theater. Her wide blue gaze found him and she gave him a happy grin and quick, surreptitious wave.

Then she nudged the Princess and whispered something more. Teressa looked up and smiled. It was a quiet smile—polite, Connor thought. Reserved. Quite proper for a princess to give a troublesome distant relative who had no land and no future.

He smiled back, then turned his eyes away so she wouldn’t think he was staring.

Nor did he want to be caught staring by his relatives. He braced for some kind of caustic comment as he gave his family a quick scan. With a sense of relief, he saw that as soon as the royal bow had been made, the King and Queen had been forgotten.

Aunt Carlas was busy gossiping with Aunt Corenna about somebody’s clothes. Uncle Fortian conversed in a low whisper with Uncle Matten, while bending his cold and haughty gaze on a couple of young aristocrats in the opposite box. Cousin Mirlee was glaring at a plump, overdressed daughter of a popular baron—no doubt, thought Connor, Mirlee was counting up how many nasty things she could say about the girl’s appearance and bearing later. Cousin Garian and his chief toady, a second cousin named Nyl, were busy staring down at the young people gathered in the first rows of the pit.

Garian glanced furtively around before pulling a handful of dried peas from his tunic. He handed some to Nyl, and they began pelting the audience below. Both boys were soon red-faced with smothered laughter.

That did it. Connor rose silently from his chair at the back of the box. If he told his uncle he’d catch it hot from Garian—and if I didn’t, he’d catch it from his uncle. Since he was doomed either way, though Garian was the culprit, he might as well get into trouble on his own account. He lifted aside the dusty velvet curtain at the back of the box, edged back one step, two, and then he was free.

Laughing in anticipation, he raced down the narrow hall. But instead of taking the tiled stairs that led to the lobby for wealthy patrons, he pushed open a narrow door discreetly hidden in the wall carvings, and a few steps carried him backstage.

Here the noise was different. Rather than the idle buzz of bored aristocrats, Connor heard the sharper, laugh-punctuated jollity of actors getting ready for a performance, a sound he knew well.

“Ho! Where’s that wig, Piar?” a tall actress called, bustling by. “For my life, find that wig!”

“Pssst,” came a far-off hiss. “It’s here, right where it should be.”

“Better you’d lost your head, that’s easier to replace,” an older actor cracked, and the tall actress took a swipe at him with her fan.

“Is my shirt torn? How could I have tripped over that wretched box . . . “ a short, balding actor demanded, hands in the air.

Nearby, the stage magician stood, studying a new play. She was young, new at her job, and Connor felt a familiar pang of regret when she waved her fingers and an illusory tree appeared. She squinted at it, then snapped her fingers, and the illusion was gone. Supposedly the easiest kind of magic, and Connor couldn’t even do that much. He turned away.

He wandered farther backstage. No one seemed to notice him in the increasing pandemonium, but he saw someone else looking panic-stricken, and Connor edged through the crowd toward him.

“Please, Master Salek. The last verse of my poem—I’ve forgotten it.” That was the new player, Jeth, a fellow not much older than Connor. He threw a quick, distracted smile Connor’s way and sketched a brief bow.

Connor spotted the black-gowned playwright conversing in an urgent undertone with the leading lady. Clearly he would be no help to poor Jeth, so Connor cued him obligingly: “And lo, the price of greatness—”

“—is the closing of the Gate,” Jeth quoted in relief. “Yes, now the rest is coming back. Thank you, thank you, Prince Connor. This is horrible—I’m already wringing wet, and I haven’t even been out before the lamps yet. Those shark-toothed toffs’ll take one look and laugh me off the stage.” Jeth seemed to remember that Connor was one of the toffs, and flushed with embarrassment. “Begging your pardon, of course—”

“Shark-toothed they are, or at least some of them,” Connor said. He couldn’t help a laugh at Jeth’s goggling dismay, but it was not a mean laugh, and Jeth seemed to sense it. “Cheer up,” Connor said. “You sounded fine yesterday, and you will again today.”

Jeth continued to mutter nervously, and because he seemed to be glad to have someone to mutter to, Connor stood by and tried to be encouraging.

“Places,” Master Salek lifted his voice as he pointed at the colored candle his assistant carried.

Connor joined the rush of movement offstage, and with a last wave at Jeth, he took his place along the wall in back.

The new prentices smoothly pulled the curtain open, the stage magician muttered softly, and illusory snow began to fall. Out beyond the gleam of the lamps along the stage’s edge, a murmur swept the audience, not quite extinguishing the giggles from one side of the gallery. Connor recognized Garian’s laugh, though it was abruptly cut short. Garian’s father had finally caught him. They would both notice Connor’s absence shortly.

He made a face at the darkness beyond the stage. Uncle Fortian would guess immediately where he was, and he would be furious. Only yesterday, when Connor had returned late from the last rehearsal, his uncle had given him the benefit of a lecture about how unseemly it was for the son of one queen and brother of another (even if only a half-brother) to be consorting with players, and it had to be his Dareneth blood causing him to follow after commoners, as no royal Shaltar ever would gobble-gabble, yakkety-yak, blabbity blab . . . The thought of more of those lectures made Connor turn away with a sigh.

Voices from the stage caught his attention then. He cast a quick glance at Master Salek, who was whispering soundlessly to himself, mouthing the words as the actors out front spoke them. The familiar chasm opened inside Connor, a tremendous yearning to be sitting on that stool, wearing a black gown, murmuring his own words as voices spoke them before an audience . . .

It would never happen.

He forced the thought from his mind and gladly let his present surroundings fade from his attention. His mind sank into the magic of the play world as the familiar story unfolded.