In every reign there comes one night of greatest blackness, when a King must send away his court of flatterers and servants, and sit alone in the dark with the beast called truth.In the gloom of the grand hall, Slately could hear it breathe.Truth at court was treated as if it were a precious commodity. It was hoarded, coveted, bartered for. Certainly this analogy applied to lies; his courtiers accepted his lies as currency of the realm. He handed them lies in large denominations, and they returned him his change in small ones.Oh, but truth was something different. Something alive and immortal. By light of day it was only a little butterfly: pretty, elusive, easily crushed, and utterly unable to defend itself. Most nights, too, it slept harmlessly. One could wave it away for a very long time.But on the nights it did not sleep, neither did the King.
