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Phelan be in Chaya, or would he attend the crowning of Tsaia's new king, the crown prince who would ascend the throne? Surely he would be too busy in his own kingdom, so new to him. Surely, too, he would not risk crossing Verrakai lands again, even with Verrakai and his brother dead or in a Tsaian dungeon.
    He had time to plan; he had time to consider if he really wanted to risk his daughter, flesh of his flesh, with a man like Phelan...but he had no other plan, nothing else that might make his land and people safer. The girl owed him that—owed their people that. He smiled at her; she gave him a tentative smile in return.
    The End

Author's Note on "Cross Purposes"
    Pargun figured as a historical backdrop for all of the first Paksworld books—hostile to the domains in which the action took place, and from which the characters came. But no land is simply an antagonist. Pargun's human population derived from Seafolk, from across the Eastern Ocean. The Seafolk had their own language, customs, legends, and beliefs, as well as a history as deep as any other, from before the magelords left Old Aare. The deep sources of their antagonism would lie in those. In Paladin's Legacy, changes in Lyonya, the mysterious domain governed jointly by elves and humans, forced Pargun's king to react. So did internal divisions no one outside the kingdom knew about. After losing troops in an attempt to prevent Lyonya's new king from getting to Lyonya in Oath of Gold , Torfinn faced a crisis and—like any good king—sought a way out that would do the least damage to his land and people. Like any good king, he saw his relatives—especially marriageable daughters—as tools of his strategy. But strong kings may have strong offspring. Fathers and daughters often see the same situation in different terms.

Torre's Ride
    On Midwinter Night, in the darkened houses, with all hearths bare and swept clean, and families huddled together for warmth, the story of Torre's Ride will be told when Torre's Necklace rises in the night sky. This is the version most often told Fintha, Tsaia, and western Aarenis.
    * * * *
    Once there was a foolish and self-indulgent king who believed the gods would serve his need, since he was also generous. This foolish king had a daughter less foolish than himself, a princess not beautiful but brave and prudent, who was also generous but not in the ruinous way of her father. Her name was Torre, and behind her back some called her Torre Bignose, for she had her mother's nose and her mother had come from far away, from a people with proud noses. Her mother had died when Torre was scarcely able to walk.
    Year by year the foolish king borrowed gold from a neighboring kingdom to maintain a reputation for generosity, trusting to its king's indulgence, for that wicked king, with his eye on profit as well as the young girl Torre, reassured him and encouraged him to borrow more until half the kingdom's worth lay in the debt. Torre's father signed one letter after another acknowledging his debt and promising to pay soon, then spent the loan on feasts for his people and luxuries for himself.
    When Torre came of age to marry, she was not betrothed, for of those kings with sons, none wished to take on a kingdom half lost to debt. Except for one: the king who held those letters. He came, then, and demanded the kingdom and Torre besides, smiling a wolf's smile as he stood in the hall of Torre's father's palace with his soldiers behind him.
    Torre's father begged and pled, to no avail, and Torre, watching, knew she could not let this thing happen, for she knew the neighboring kingdom to live in fear of this king, who treated his people badly. Worse than her own fate as his wife would be the fate of her father's kingdom when joined to his. For many of the wicked king's subjects went hungry and ragged; her father might be foolish, but his people did not lack.
    So boldly she stood forth, and boldly she asked what that king would accept instead, and