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Amatheon would not meet my gaze. Onilwyn did, but only for a moment, before he hid his frightened eyes. He hadn't liked the bite of the ring, and truthfully, neither had I. Usna was helping fit Nicca into a rich violet-red cloak, setting it with a silver and opal brooch. He was too busy joking with Nicca about the wings to notice my glance. Carrow had drawn apart from the others, because he would not be permanent among us. The queen would not waste a guard who wasn't fertile on me.
With only Sage as a question, we could order him out of a room, but if Andais insisted on saddling me with more and more people I did not trust, we'd soon run into someone who would not go meekly from the room so we could plot. Or maybe that was her idea. She'd once tried to send a spy to me, a spy who was acknowledged as her spy. But he'd tried to assassinate me, and she hadn't picked anyone to replace him after he died. Maybe that was it. I looked at the three new guards whom Barinthus hadn't wanted to be here, and thought, yes, that was it. They were her spies. One or all of them were her spies. She'd sent three because she wanted to make certain at least one of them was chosen by the ring. How she would laugh when she found out that all her spies had passed the test.